The American Mathematical Society is having their Fall Western meeting here at U. C. Riverside during the weekend of November 9th and 10th, 2019. Joe Moeller and I are organizing a session on App…
But it is easy to think we are in agreement, when we really are not. Modeling our thoughts on heuristics and graphics may be convenient for quick travel down the road, but we are liable to miss our turnoff at the first mile. The danger is in mistaking convenient conceptualizations for what is actually there.
A functor is like a conductor of mathematical truth.
The answer is that when we formalize our ideas, our understanding is clarified.
Creativity demands clarity of thinking, and to think clearly about a subject requires an organized understanding of how its pieces fit together. Organization and clarity also lead to better communication with others. Academics often say they are paid to think and understand, but that is not the whole truth. They are paid to think, understand, and communicate their findings.
Reminder that if you’re interested in math, science, or computer science it’s not too late to register for the UCLA Extension course Introduction to Category Theory that starts tonight.
Wikipedia enforces its entries to adopt an NPOV – a neutral point of view . This is appropriate for an encyclopedia.
However, the nLab is not Wikipedia, nor is it an encyclopedia, although it does aspire to provide a useful reference in many areas (among its other purposes). In particular, the nnLab has a particular point of view, which we may call the nnPOV or the n-categorical point of view .
This course is an introduction to the basic tenets of category theory, as formulated and illustrated through examples drawn from algebra, calculus, geometry, set theory, topology, number theory, and linear algebra.
Category theory, since its development in the 1940s, has assumed an increasingly center-stage role in formalizing mathematics and providing tools to diverse scientific disciplines, most notably computer science. A category is fundamentally a family of mathematical obejcts (e.g., numbers, vector spaces, groups, topological spaces) along with “mappings” (so-called morphisms) between these objects that, in some defined sense, preserve structure. Taking it one step further, one can consider morphisms (so-called functors) between categories. This course is an introduction to the basic tenets of category theory, as formulated and illustrated through examples drawn from algebra, calculus, geometry, set theory, topology, number theory, and linear algebra. Topics to be discussed include: isomorphism; products and coproducts; dual categories; covariant, contravariant, and adjoint functors; abelian and additive categories; and the Yoneda Lemma. The course should appeal to devotees of mathematical reasoning, computer scientists, and those wishing to gain basic insights into a hot area of mathematics.
January 8, 2019 - March 19, 2019
Tuesday 7:00PM - 10:00PM
Location: UCLA
Instructor: Michael Miller
Fee: $453.00
The new catalog is out today and Mike Miller’s Winter class in Category Theory has been officially announced.
Oddly, it wasn’t listed in the published physical catalog, but it’s available online. I hope that those interested in mathematics will register as well as those who are interested in computer science.
Last night was the first lecture of Dr. Miller’s Gems And Astonishments of Mathematics: Past and Present class at UCLA Extension. There are a good 15 or so people in the class, so there’s still room (and time) to register if you’re interested. While Dr. Miller typically lectures on one broad topic for a quarter (or sometimes two) in which the treatment continually builds heavy complexity over time, this class will cover 1-2 much smaller particular mathematical problems each week. Thus week 11 won’t rely on knowing all the material from the prior weeks, which may make things easier for some who are overly busy. If you have the time on Tuesday nights and are interested in math or love solving problems, this is an excellent class to consider. If you’re unsure, stop by one of the first lectures on Tuesday nights from 7-10 to check them out before registering.
Lecture notes
For those who may have missed last night’s first lecture, I’m linking to a Livescribe PDF document which includes the written notes as well as the accompanying audio from the lecture. If you view it in Acrobat Reader version X (or higher), you should be able to access the audio portion of the lecture and experience it in real time almost as if you had been present in person. (Instructions for using Livescribe PDF documents.)
We’ve covered the following topics:
Class Introduction
Erdős Discrepancy Problem
n-cubes
Hilbert’s Cube Lemma (1892)
Schur (1916)
Van der Waerden (1927)
Sylvester’s Line Problem (partial coverage to be finished in the next lecture)
Over the coming days and months, I’ll likely bookmark some related papers and research on these and other topics in the class using the class identifier MATHX451.44 as a tag in addition to topic specific tags.
Course Description
Mathematics has evolved over the centuries not only by building on the work of past generations, but also through unforeseen discoveries or conjectures that continue to tantalize, bewilder, and engage academics and the public alike. This course, the first in a two-quarter sequence, is a survey of about two dozen problems—some dating back 400 years, but all readily stated and understood—that either remain unsolved or have been settled in fairly recent times. Each of them, aside from presenting its own intrigue, has led to the development of novel mathematical approaches to problem solving. Topics to be discussed include (Google away!): Conway’s Look and Say Sequences, Kepler’s Conjecture, Szilassi’s Polyhedron, the ABC Conjecture, Benford’s Law, Hadamard’s Conjecture, Parrondo’s Paradox, and the Collatz Conjecture. The course should appeal to devotees of mathematical reasoning and those wishing to keep abreast of recent and continuing mathematical developments.
Suggested Prerequisites
Some exposure to advanced mathematical methods, particularly those pertaining to number theory and matrix theory. Most in the class are taking the course for “fun” and the enjoyment of learning, so there is a huge breadth of mathematical abilities represented–don’t not take the course because you feel you’ll get lost.
I’d complained to the UCLA administration before about how dirty the windows were in the Math Sciences Building, but they went even further than I expected in fixing the problem. Not only did they clean the windows they put in new flooring, brand new modern chairs, wood paneling on the walls, new projection, and new white boards! I particularly love the new swivel chairs, and it’s nice to have such a lovely new environment in which to study math.
The newly renovated classroom space in UCLA’s Math Sciences Building
Category Theory for Winter 2019
As I mentioned the other day, Dr. Miller has also announced (and reiterated last night) that he’ll be teaching a course on the topic of Category Theory for the Winter quarter coming up. Thus if you’re interested in abstract mathematics or areas of computer programming that use it, start getting ready!
Tai-Danae Bradley has a new free “booklet” on applied category theory. It was inspired by the workshop Applied Category Theory 2018, which she attended, and I think it makes a great com…
Syndicated copies:
As I get amped up for the start of Mike Miller’s Fall math class Gems and Astonishments of Mathematics, which is still open for registration, I’m even more excited that he’s emailed me to say that he’ll be teaching Category Theory for the Winter Quarter in 2019!!
This is a collection of introductory, expository notes on applied category theory, inspired by the 2018 Applied Category Theory Workshop, and in these notes we take a leisurely stroll through two themes (functorial semantics and compositionality), two constructions (monoidal categories and decorated cospans) and two examples (chemical reaction networks and natural language processing) within the field. [PDF]
hat tip:
Friends! I am so happy to share that my little booklet “What is Applied Category Theory?” is now available on the arXiv. It’s a collection of introductory, expository notes inspired by the ACT workshop that took place earlier this year. Enjoy! https://t.co/EPYP19z14xpic.twitter.com/O4uVhj401s
This book introduces a temporal type theory, the first of its kind as far as we know. It is based on a standard core, and as such it can be formalized in a proof assistant such as Coq or Lean by adding a number of axioms. Well-known temporal logics---such as Linear and Metric Temporal Logic (LTL and MTL)---embed within the logic of temporal type theory.
The types in this theory represent "behavior types". The language is rich enough to allow one to define arbitrary hybrid dynamical systems, which are mixtures of continuous dynamics---e.g. as described by a differential equation---and discrete jumps. In particular, the derivative of a continuous real-valued function is internally defined.
We construct a semantics for the temporal type theory in the topos of sheaves on a translation-invariant quotient of the standard interval domain. In fact, domain theory plays a recurring role in both the semantics and the type theory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCrlm8WsItE
hat tip:
This morning at ACT2018, David Spivak gave a VERY cool talk on using topos theory to model how airplanes can maintain a safe distance from each other in flight. You can watch the talk here! https://t.co/pUXZhj6SXA Also check out “Temporal Type Theory” at https://t.co/6LWNOQWtqwpic.twitter.com/7x9yjBwVIA
Dear god, I wish Ilyas had a traditional blog with a true feed, but I’m willing to put up with the inconvenience of manually looking him up from time to time to see what he’s writing about quantum mechanics, quantum computing, category theory, and other areas of math.
This short article is the result of various conversations over the course of the past year or so that arose on the back of two articles/blog pieces that I have previously written about Category Theory (here and here). One of my objectives with such articles, whether they be on aspects of quantum computing or about aspects of maths, is to try and de-mystify as much of the associated jargon as possible, and bring some of the stunning beauty and wonder of the subject to as wide an audience as possible. Whilst it is clearly not possible to become an expert overnight, and it is certainly not my objective to try and provide more than an introduction (hopefully stimulating further research and study), I remain convinced that with a little effort, non-specialists and even self confessed math-phobes can grasp some of the core concepts. In the case of my articles on Category Theory, I felt that even if I could generate one small gasp of excited comprehension where there was previously only confusion, then the articles were worth writing.
I just finished a course on Algebraic Geometry through UCLA Extension, which was geared toward non-traditional math students and professionals, and wish I had known about Smith’s textbook when I’d started. I did spend some time with Cox, Little, and O’Shea’s Ideals, Varieties, and Algorithms which is a pretty good introduction to the area, but written a bit more for computer scientists and engineers in mind rather than the pure mathematician, which might recommend it more toward your audience here as well. It’s certainly more accessible than Hartshorne for the faint-of-heart.
I’ve enjoyed your prior articles on category theory which have spurred me to delve deeper into the area. For others who are interested, I thought I’d also mention that physicist and information theorist John Carlos Baez at UCR has recently started an applied category theory online course which I suspect is a bit more accessible than most of the higher graduate level texts and courses currently out. For more details, I’d suggest starting here: https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2018/03/26/seven-sketches-in-compositionality/
This book is an invitation to discover advanced topics in category theory through concrete, real-world examples. It aims to give a tour: a gentle, quick introduction to guide later exploration. The tour takes place over seven sketches, each pairing an evocative application, such as databases, electric circuits, or dynamical systems, with the exploration of a categorical structure, such as adjoint functors, enriched categories, or toposes. No prior knowledge of category theory is assumed. [.pdf]
Tai-Danae Bradley (arxiv.org)Co-Founder and CEO at Cambridge Quantum Computing
Ilyas Khan (LinkedIn)