Applications Of Categorical Algebra

This volume presents the proceedings of the Symposium in Pure Mathematics held in New York City on April 10-11, 1968. The organizing committee felt that it was appropriate to devote attention to the applications of categorical algebra rather than to its autonomous development. It was explicit problems in topology and algebra which led to the engendering of category theory, and the applications continue to be numerous and lively. It is hoped the included papers show the diversity of research in categorical algebra.

Categorical algebra and its applications contain several fundamental papers on general category theory, by the top specialists in the field, and many interesting papers on the applications of category theory in functional analysis, algebraic topology, algebraic geometry, general topology, ring theory, cohomology, differential geometry, group theory, mathematical logic and computer sciences. The volume contains 28 carefully selected and refereed papers, out of 96 talks delivered, and illustrates the usefulness of category theory today as a powerful tool of investigation in many other areas.

The Handbook of Categorical Algebra is designed to give, in three volumes, a detailed account of what should be known by everybody working in, or using, category theory. As such it will be a unique reference. The volumes are written in sequence, with the first being essentially self-contained, and are accessible to graduate students with a good background in mathematics. In particular, Volume 1, which is devoted to general concepts, can be used for advanced undergraduate courses on category theory.

Our motivation for gathering the material for this book over aperiod of seven years has been to unify and simplify ideas wh ich appeared in a sizable number of re search articles during the past two decades. More specifically, it has been our aim to provide the categorical foundations for extensive work that was published on the epimorphism- and cowellpoweredness problem, predominantly for categories of topological spaces. In doing so we found the categorical not ion of closure operators interesting enough to be studied for its own sake, as it unifies and describes other significant mathematical notions and since it leads to a never-ending stream of ex amples and applications in all areas of mathematics. These are somewhat arbitrarily restricted to topology, algebra and (a small part of) discrete mathematics in this book, although other areas, such as functional analysis, would provide an equally rich and interesting supply of examples. We also had to restrict the themes in our theoretical exposition. In spite of the fact that closure operators generalize the uni versal closure operations of abelian category theory and of topos- and sheaf theory, we chose to mention these aspects only en passant, in favour of the presentation of new results more closely related to our original intentions. We also needed to refrain from studying topological concepts, such as compactness, in the setting of an arbitrary closure-equipped category, although this topic appears prominently in the published literature involving closure operators.