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2-category
In category theory, a strict 2-category is a category with "morphisms between morphisms", that is, where each hom-set itself carries the structure of a category. It can be formally defined as a category enriched over Cat (the category of categories and functors, with the monoidal structure given by product of categories). The concept of 2-category was first introduced by Charles Ehresmann in his work on enriched categories in 1965. The more general concept of bicategory (or ''weak'' 2-''category''), where composition of morphisms is associative only up to a 2-isomorphism, was introduced in 1968 by Jean Bénabou.Jean Bénabou, Introduction to bicategories, in Reports of the Midwest Category Seminar, Springer, Berlin, 1967, pp. 1--77. Definition A 2-category C consists of: * A class of 0-''cells'' (or ''objects'') , , .... * For all objects and , a category \mathbf(A,B). The objects f,g: A \to B of this category are called 1-''cells'' and its morphisms \alpha: f \Ri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Category Theory
Category theory is a general theory of mathematical structures and their relations that was introduced by Samuel Eilenberg and Saunders Mac Lane in the middle of the 20th century in their foundational work on algebraic topology. Nowadays, category theory is used in almost all areas of mathematics, and in some areas of computer science. In particular, many constructions of new mathematical objects from previous ones, that appear similarly in several contexts are conveniently expressed and unified in terms of categories. Examples include quotient spaces, direct products, completion, and duality. A category is formed by two sorts of objects: the objects of the category, and the morphisms, which relate two objects called the ''source'' and the ''target'' of the morphism. One often says that a morphism is an ''arrow'' that ''maps'' its source to its target. Morphisms can be ''composed'' if the target of the first morphism equals the source of the second one, and morphism compos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Ehresmann
Charles Ehresmann (19 April 1905 – 22 September 1979) was a German-born French mathematician who worked in differential topology and category theory. He was an early member of the Bourbaki group, and is known for his work on the differential geometry of smooth fiber bundles, notably the introduction of the concepts of Ehresmann connection and of jet bundles, and for his seminar on category theory. Life Ehresmann was born in Strasbourg (at the time part of the German Empire) to an Alsatian-speaking family; his father was a gardener. After World War I, Alsace returned part of France and Ehresmann was taught in French at Lycée Kléber. Between 1924 and 1927 he studied at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris and obtained agrégation in mathematics. After one year of military service, in 1928-29 he taught at a French school in Rabat, Morocco. He studied further at the University of Göttingen during the years 1930–31, and at Princeton University in 1932–34. He co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Enriched Category
In category theory, a branch of mathematics, an enriched category generalizes the idea of a category by replacing hom-sets with objects from a general monoidal category. It is motivated by the observation that, in many practical applications, the hom-set often has additional structure that should be respected, e.g., that of being a vector space of morphisms, or a topological space of morphisms. In an enriched category, the set of morphisms (the hom-set) associated with every pair of objects is replaced by an object in some fixed monoidal category of "hom-objects". In order to emulate the (associative) composition of morphisms in an ordinary category, the hom-category must have a means of composing hom-objects in an associative manner: that is, there must be a binary operation on objects giving us at least the structure of a monoidal category, though in some contexts the operation may also need to be commutative and perhaps also to have a right adjoint (i.e., making the category sym ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Enriched Categories
In category theory, a branch of mathematics, an enriched category generalizes the idea of a category by replacing hom-sets with objects from a general monoidal category. It is motivated by the observation that, in many practical applications, the hom-set often has additional structure that should be respected, e.g., that of being a vector space of morphisms, or a topological space of morphisms. In an enriched category, the set of morphisms (the hom-set) associated with every pair of objects is replaced by an object in some fixed monoidal category of "hom-objects". In order to emulate the (associative) composition of morphisms in an ordinary category, the hom-category must have a means of composing hom-objects in an associative manner: that is, there must be a binary operation on objects giving us at least the structure of a monoidal category, though in some contexts the operation may also need to be commutative and perhaps also to have a right adjoint (i.e., making the category s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monoidal Category
In mathematics, a monoidal category (or tensor category) is a category \mathbf C equipped with a bifunctor :\otimes : \mathbf \times \mathbf \to \mathbf that is associative up to a natural isomorphism, and an object ''I'' that is both a left and right identity for ⊗, again up to a natural isomorphism. The associated natural isomorphisms are subject to certain coherence conditions, which ensure that all the relevant diagrams commute. The ordinary tensor product makes vector spaces, abelian groups, ''R''-modules, or ''R''-algebras into monoidal categories. Monoidal categories can be seen as a generalization of these and other examples. Every (small) monoidal category may also be viewed as a "categorification" of an underlying monoid, namely the monoid whose elements are the isomorphism classes of the category's objects and whose binary operation is given by the category's tensor product. A rather different application, of which monoidal categories can be considered an abstractio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bicategory
In mathematics, a bicategory (or a weak 2-category) is a concept in category theory used to extend the notion of category to handle the cases where the composition of morphisms is not (strictly) associative, but only associative ''up to'' an isomorphism. The notion was introduced in 1967 by Jean Bénabou. Bicategories may be considered as a weakening of the definition of 2-categories. A similar process for 3-categories leads to tricategories, and more generally to weak ''n''-categories for ''n''-categories. Definition Formally, a bicategory B consists of: * objects ''a'', ''b'', ... called 0-''cells''; * morphisms ''f'', ''g'', ... with fixed source and target objects called 1-''cells''; * "morphisms between morphisms" ρ, σ, ... with fixed source and target morphisms (which should have themselves the same source and the same target), called 2-''cells''; with some more structure: * given two objects ''a'' and ''b'' there is a category B(''a'', ''b'') whose objects are the 1- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Category Of Small Categories
In mathematics, specifically in category theory, the category of small categories, denoted by Cat, is the category whose objects are all small categories and whose morphisms are functors between categories. Cat may actually be regarded as a 2-category with natural transformations serving as 2-morphisms. The initial object of Cat is the ''empty category'' 0, which is the category of no objects and no morphisms. The terminal object is the ''terminal category'' or ''trivial category'' 1 with a single object and morphism. at nLab The category Cat is itself a , and therefore not an object of itself. In order to avoid problems analogous to |
Topos (mathematics)
In mathematics, a topos (, ; plural topoi or , or toposes) is a category that behaves like the category of sheaves of sets on a topological space (or more generally: on a site). Topoi behave much like the category of sets and possess a notion of localization; they are a direct generalization of point-set topology. The Grothendieck topoi find applications in algebraic geometry; the more general elementary topoi are used in logic. The mathematical field that studies topoi is called topos theory. Grothendieck topos (topos in geometry) Since the introduction of sheaves into mathematics in the 1940s, a major theme has been to study a space by studying sheaves on a space. This idea was expounded by Alexander Grothendieck by introducing the notion of a "topos". The main utility of this notion is in the abundance of situations in mathematics where topological heuristics are very effective, but an honest topological space is lacking; it is sometimes possible to find a topos formaliz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operad
In mathematics, an operad is a structure that consists of abstract operations, each one having a fixed finite number of inputs (arguments) and one output, as well as a specification of how to compose these operations. Given an operad O, one defines an ''algebra over O'' to be a set together with concrete operations on this set which behave just like the abstract operations of O. For instance, there is a Lie operad L such that the algebras over L are precisely the Lie algebras; in a sense L abstractly encodes the operations that are common to all Lie algebras. An operad is to its algebras as a group is to its group representations. History Operads originate in algebraic topology; they were introduced to characterize iterated loop spaces by J. Michael Boardman and Rainer M. Vogt in 1969 and by J. Peter May in 1970. The word "operad" was created by May as a portmanteau of "operations" and "monad" (and also because his mother was an opera singer). Interest in operads was consid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Presheaf Category
In category theory, a branch of mathematics, a presheaf on a category (mathematics), category C is a functor F\colon C^\mathrm\to\mathbf. If C is the poset of open sets in a topological space, interpreted as a category, then one recovers the usual notion of presheaf (mathematics), presheaf on a topological space. A morphism of presheaves is defined to be a natural transformation of functors. This makes the collection of all presheaves on C into a category, and is an example of a functor category. It is often written as \widehat = \mathbf^. A functor into \widehat is sometimes called a profunctor. A presheaf that is natural isomorphism, naturally isomorphic to the contravariant hom-functor Hom(–, ''A'') for some object (category theory), object ''A'' of C is called a representable presheaf. Some authors refer to a functor F\colon C^\mathrm\to\mathbf as a \mathbf-valued presheaf. Examples * A simplicial set is a Set-valued presheaf on the simplex category C=\Delta. Properti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
