Jim Holt on categories

[pjf <pjf@seas.upenn.edu>]

Jim Holt wrote in his "Diary" on Slate, 2000--11--27

    Category theory is a ridiculously abstract framework that takes all
    the meaning out of mathematics.

In his review of Michael Harris's "Mathematics Without Apologies:
Portrait of a Problematic Vocation" (Princeton University Press, 2015)
Holt writes (The New York Review of Books, 2015--12--03):

     ...Grothendieck made [category theory] sing. Between 1958 and 1970,
    he used category theory to create novel structures of unexampled
    richness. Since then, the heady abstractions of category theory
    have also become useful in theoretical physics, computer science,
    logic and philosophy. Footnote: A charming and improbably successful
      attempt to explain category theory in culinary terms is made by
      the mathematician Eugenia Cheng in her new book "How to Bake Pi:
      An Edible Exploriation of the Mathematics of Mathematics" (Basic
      Books, 2015)

(See also Barany's review of Harris on MathSciNet MR3289987)


I do have one quesion: what does "enexampled richness" mean?



[For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]