From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/5406 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Tom Leinster Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: A well kept secret? Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 01:53:30 +0000 (GMT) Message-ID: References: Reply-To: Tom Leinster NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; format=flowed; charset=US-ASCII X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1261577453 31266 80.91.229.12 (23 Dec 2009 14:10:53 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:10:53 +0000 (UTC) To: categories@mta.ca Original-X-From: categories@mta.ca Wed Dec 23 15:10:46 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from mailserv.mta.ca ([138.73.1.1]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1NNRvK-0007Ed-3a for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:10:46 +0100 Original-Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1NNRSa-0003cT-BD for categories-list@mta.ca; Wed, 23 Dec 2009 09:41:04 -0400 Original-Sender: categories@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:5406 Archived-At: Those depressed about the social status of category theory might be cheered up by a look at Math Overflow, http://mathoverflow.net . This is a website where you can ask and answer questions about any part of mathematics. You might expect that for a site with this problem-solving format, category theory wouldn't be much in evidence. But according to the site's own statistics, it's the 3rd most popular topic for questions. The site's been up only a few months but has been enormously successful, with some extremely clever and knowledgeable people contributing regularly. It really doesn't seem like a pro-category niche group. But I've seen little or no anti-category sniping there. The kind of cynicism that most of us have experienced just isn't in evidence. A particular reason to find this cheering is that the demographic of the contributors is skewed towards the young, the American, and the algebraic geometers. (Young American algebraic geometers are a definite minority, though - there's quite a wide spread.) Why might that be particularly cheering? "Young" because it suggests a bright future, "American" because, as I gather, the NSF has historically been loath to support category theory, and "algebraic geometers" because it suggests that the anti-category theory backlash in that influential subject may be nearing an end. Best wishes, Tom [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]