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. Category theory is used in almost all areas of mathematics. In particular, numerous 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.
In mathematics, the inverse limit is a construction that allows one to "glue together" several related objects, the precise gluing process being specified by morphisms between the objects. Thus, inverse limits can be defined in any category although their existence depends on the category that is considered. They are a special case of the concept of limit in category theory.
In category theory, a branch of mathematics, the abstract notion of a limit captures the essential properties of universal constructions such as products, pullbacks and inverse limits. The dual notion of a colimit generalizes constructions such as disjoint unions, direct sums, coproducts, pushouts and direct limits.
In mathematics, a category is a collection of "objects" that are linked by "arrows". A category has two basic properties: the ability to compose the arrows associatively and the existence of an identity arrow for each object. A simple example is the category of sets, whose objects are sets and whose arrows are functions.
In category theory, a branch of mathematics, an initial object of a category C is an object I in C such that for every object X in C, there exists precisely one morphism I → X.
In mathematics, a direct limit is a way to construct a object from many objects that are put together in a specific way. These objects may be groups, rings, vector spaces or in general objects from any category. The way they are put together is specified by a system of homomorphisms between those smaller objects. The direct limit of the objects , where ranges over some directed set , is denoted by .
In category theory, a subobject classifier is a special object Ω of a category such that, intuitively, the subobjects of any object X in the category correspond to the morphisms from X to Ω. In typical examples, that morphism assigns "true" to the elements of the subobject and "false" to the other elements of X. Therefore, a subobject classifier is also known as a "truth value object" and the concept is widely used in the categorical description of logic. Note however that subobject classifiers are often much more complicated than the simple binary logic truth values {true, false}.
In mathematics, the category of topological spaces, often denoted Top, is the category whose objects are topological spaces and whose morphisms are continuous maps. This is a category because the composition of two continuous maps is again continuous, and the identity function is continuous. The study of Top and of properties of topological spaces using the techniques of category theory is known as categorical topology.
Categorical logic is the branch of mathematics in which tools and concepts from category theory are applied to the study of mathematical logic. It is also notable for its connections to theoretical computer science. In broad terms, categorical logic represents both syntax and semantics by a category, and an interpretation by a functor. The categorical framework provides a rich conceptual background for logical and type-theoretic constructions. The subject has been recognisable in these terms since around 1970.
In category theory, a branch of mathematics, Beck's monadicity theorem gives a criterion that characterises monadic functors, introduced by Jonathan Mock Beck (2003) in about 1964. It is often stated in dual form for comonads. It is sometimes called the Beck tripleability theorem because of the older term triple for a monad.
This is a glossary of properties and concepts in category theory in mathematics.
In mathematics, particularly in homotopy theory, a model category is a category with distinguished classes of morphisms ('arrows') called 'weak equivalences', 'fibrations' and 'cofibrations' satisfying certain axioms relating them. These abstract from the category of topological spaces or of chain complexes. The concept was introduced by Daniel G. Quillen (1967).
In mathematics, higher category theory is the part of category theory at a higher order, which means that some equalities are replaced by explicit arrows in order to be able to explicitly study the structure behind those equalities. Higher category theory is often applied in algebraic topology, where one studies algebraic invariants of spaces, such as their fundamental weak ∞-groupoid.
In category theory, a branch of mathematics, the cone of a functor is an abstract notion used to define the limit of that functor. Cones make other appearances in category theory as well.
In category theory, a branch of mathematics, a diagram is the categorical analogue of an indexed family in set theory. The primary difference is that in the categorical setting one has morphisms that also need indexing. An indexed family of sets is a collection of sets, indexed by a fixed set; equivalently, a function from a fixed index set to the class of sets. A diagram is a collection of objects and morphisms, indexed by a fixed category; equivalently, a functor from a fixed index category to some category.
The theory of accessible categories is a part of mathematics, specifically of category theory. It attempts to describe categories in terms of the "size" of the operations needed to generate their objects.
In mathematics, a topos is a category that behaves like the category of sheaves of sets on a topological space. 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.
In category theory, the notion of final functor is a generalization of the notion of final object in a category.
In mathematics, compact objects, also referred to as finitely presented objects, or objects of finite presentation, are objects in a category satisfying a certain finiteness condition.
In mathematics, the ind-completion or ind-construction is the process of freely adding filtered colimits to a given category C. The objects in this ind-completed category, denoted Ind(C), are known as direct systems, they are functors from a small filtered category I to C.
