From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/9942 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Roberts Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: "First" use of 'Category theory' to describe our field Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2019 08:28:31 +0930 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: David Roberts Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Injection-Info: blaine.gmane.org; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:195.159.176.226"; logging-data="3375"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@blaine.gmane.org" Cc: "categories@mta.ca list" To: Ross Street Original-X-From: majordomo@mlist.mta.ca Fri Jul 12 21:42:37 2019 Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from smtp2.mta.ca ([198.164.44.55]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.89) (envelope-from ) id 1hm1RC-0000cv-Ki for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Fri, 12 Jul 2019 21:42:35 +0200 Original-Received: from mlist.mta.ca ([138.73.1.63]:34563) by smtp2.mta.ca with esmtp (Exim 4.80) (envelope-from ) id 1hm1Qx-0000lp-9f; Fri, 12 Jul 2019 16:42:19 -0300 Original-Received: from majordomo by mlist.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1hm1QF-0003Bj-Pm for categories-list@mlist.mta.ca; Fri, 12 Jul 2019 16:41:35 -0300 In-Reply-To: <10CF2601-2F4E-4E47-B36F-B4A1A1FEB55C@mq.edu.au> Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:9942 Archived-At: Dear Ross, no, that's pretty good! It's mildly surprising that it took ~20 years for the name to 'stick', but maybe less so given that the field grew slowly to start. Thanks, David David Roberts Webpage: https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/David+Roberts Blog: https://thehighergeometer.wordpress.com On Thu, 11 Jul 2019 at 08:21, Ross Street wrote: > > Dear David > > From memory, the Pure Mathematics Honours (USyd) course that Max Kelly taught in 1965 > was called ``Category Theory''. It concentrated on different kinds of morphisms > and factorizations in a category, and finished with adjoint functors. > Also John Gray's (UIllinois) 1968-69 graduate course had that name. > > From Eilenberg I heard that each person using categories should have their own category of expertise. > I told this to John Gray who said that was fine; the time had come for that category to be Cat. > > I would suggest that the first category theorists to think of themselves as such were Eilenberg's students at Columbia. > However, Mac Lane was definitely a category theorist. > > This is probably not the verifiable stuff you were seeking. > > Ross > > > On 10 Jul 2019, at 10:01 PM, David Roberts wrote: > > Hi all, > > the (idle) question is: when did the phrase 'category theory' catch on > for the field? Clearly it didn't leap from either of the heads of > Eilenberg or Mac Lane full-grown, since they used the phrase 'General > theory of natural equivalences'. There are the old 'Reports of the > Midwest Category Seminar' lecture notes (the first in 1967), which > hints that 'category theory' wasn't quite the name in use. > > Even more interesting: who was the first "category theorist", by that name? > > Answers referring to verifiable sources would be best. > > Thoughts? > > David > > > > David Roberts > Webpage: https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/David+Roberts > Blog: https://thehighergeometer.wordpress.com > [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]