Re:Infinity Category Theory Offers a Bird’s-Eye View of Math...
by tome on Thursday September 16, 2021 @05:12AM
(#28549579)
Concretely, what exactly are you claiming is duplicated?
Re:Infinity Category Theory Offers a Bird’s-Eye View of Math...
by benrbray on Thursday September 16, 2021 @08:27AM
(#28550845)
I think category theory can help to give a "roadmap" for what the basic theorems of each course will be. Personally, as a student, I always felt like my courses jumped around too much without explanation, and like I could never see what was coming next. Knowing category theory has helped me see the bigger picture. When we encounter a new category, it helps to understand what products, limits, colimits, functors, natural transformations, Yoneda Lemma, adjunctions, etc. look like for this category. Indeed, most of the theorems in a topology or algebra or measure theory course fit into this mold -- we define what a morphism is and then prove a bunch of facts about products, functors, etc..
Re:Infinity Category Theory Offers a Bird’s-Eye View of Math...
by myWindoonn on Thursday September 16, 2021 @11:03AM
(#28552706)
We should teach the bulk of Lawvere theories only once. Students should get to know groups and rings as two flavors of a similar construction, and also be introduced to the mysterious fact that some objects, like fields, don't fit into the Lawvere-theory paradigm.
There's enough motivation for category theory even in basic foundations. You could start by teaching a structural set theory like ETCS as the formal counterpart of naïve set theory. Then yes, teach abstract algebra as usual but introduce category-theoretical generalizations early instead of duplicating content.