From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/7307 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "George Janelidze" Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Bourbaki and category theory again Date: Sun, 27 May 2012 16:16:17 +0200 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: "George Janelidze" NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;format=flowed;charset="iso-8859-1";reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1338145156 29513 80.91.229.3 (27 May 2012 18:59:16 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 27 May 2012 18:59:16 +0000 (UTC) Cc: "Francis Borceux" To: Original-X-From: majordomo@mlist.mta.ca Sun May 27 20:59:15 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from smtpx.mta.ca ([138.73.1.80]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1SYigF-0005mf-D3 for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Sun, 27 May 2012 20:59:07 +0200 Original-Received: from mlist.mta.ca ([138.73.1.63]:44774) by smtpx.mta.ca with esmtp (Exim 4.77) (envelope-from ) id 1SYifi-0002pm-QS; Sun, 27 May 2012 15:58:34 -0300 Original-Received: from majordomo by mlist.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SYifj-0007rb-I9 for categories-list@mlist.mta.ca; Sun, 27 May 2012 15:58:35 -0300 In-Reply-To: Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:7307 Archived-At: The topic "Bourbaki and category theory" has several interesting aspects, and I shall write at least one more message about that. At the moment, under the permission of Francis Borceux, I would like to show one of his messages to me written a few days ago: "...I had a look at Nicolas Bourbaki Elements de mathematiques Theorie des ensembles Chapitre 4 Second edition Hermann 1966 just to refresh my mind. The first edition of this book had been published in 1957. First of all an obvious remark. The work of Bourbaki is by no means a "one shot work". It took many decades to produce it. Many books and chapters have had successive editions, sometimes very different from the previous ones. A new edition was generally reflecting all the progresses and changes of point of view made since the previous edition. And if generally a new edition is "Revised and augmented", the second edition of the book mentioned above is at once presented as "Revised and reduced...". I am sure that many people would be able to comment infinitely on this peculiar aspect. The point of Bourbaki in Section 1 of this Chapter 4 is to define what a mathematical structure is ("une espece de structure"). This is done in a very general setting, which includes most mathematical structures you can think of, whatever their nature: algebraic, topological, ordered, categorical, and so on. It is in this first section that the notion of "isomorphism" is investigated. Section 2 of Chapter 4 is devoted to the notion of "morphism" for such a mathematical structure (this Section is called "Morphismes et structures derivees" ... thus even the title of the section refers explicitly to the notion of "morphism"). The notions of "initial structure" and "final structure", so popular in categorical topology, are at once investigated. The notion of product is presented as a special case of an initial structure. Section 3 is then devoted to the general "universal problem" when comparing two mathematical structures. The "existence theorem" is stated and proved in Subsection 3.2 in terms of the existence of products and a "solution set condition". So what? Well, category theory intends to study objects and morphisms, without any reference to a mathematical structure which would have given rise to them. And this proved to be the very natural and efficient context where to introduce the notions of limit and adjoint functors and prove the basic theorems about them. But indeed, the "adjoint functor theorem" is essentially present in Bourbaki, even if the abstract notions of "category" and "functor" never appear.? The theorem is proved in the case of "two mathematical structures" in the very general sense defined by Bourbaki. The great merit of Peter Freyd has been to put the "universal problem for two structures" in the elegant context of categories and adjoint functors. And to have given a corresponding elegant proof of the "adjoint functor theorem". This has made the question fully transparent, in opposition to the heavy technicalities found in Bourbaki. Now was Peter Freyd aware of the result of Bourbaki? Probably, since in those days Mac Lane and Eilenberg had regular contacts with the Bourbaki group. But there is no shame at all -- just merit -- to generalize an existing result, especially to put it in its "right context". But why to care about these questions of priorities? Everybody knows the Fermat theorem ... but did he really prove it? As a matter of comparison, also the "nine lemma" and the "snake lemma" did exist before the invention of abelian categories. But abelian categories provided a beautiful and natural context where to study these lemmas. And of course, these lemmas have been further investigated in much more general contexts than just abelian categories. Like for adjoint functors, further studied in enriched, bi, 2, pseudo or lax contexts. To whom should we give credit for such results? To the author of the very first result of that kind? To the author of the more general result? To the author of the result which "you" consider as most "natural". Really, I am not interested in argueing on this. Did you already count the number of "Pythagoras theorems" in mathematics ... or the number of "Galois theorems"? Now, all right. As a "has been" category theorist, I consider abstract categories as the most natural setting for studying the adjoint functor theorem. But I am also aware that rapidly category theorists leave the context of "abstract" categories for more specific "mathematical structures" in order to prove more precise theorems. They study theories giving rise to algebraic categories, accessible categories, topological categories, classifying toposes, and so on. All these theories (Lawvere, sketches, coherent theories, ...) fall under the scope of Bourbaki's "structures". Thus Bourbaki did prove his "universal mapping theorem" in a general setting which includes (probably) all concrete mathematical examples that you can find in categorical books as applications of the more general Freyd adjoint functor theorem. But nevertheless, as far as universal problems are concerned, I consider Freyd's approach as much more elegant..." End of message of Francis Borceux copied by George Janelidze [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]