3 Nov
2002
3 Nov
'02
4:43 p.m.
First of all IANAM (I am not a mathematician!) The impression I got from reading about categories (on the internet of course) is that category theory is a sort of grand unified theory of mathematics. Categories has the ability to describe any of the fields of mathematics, and is even able to link together totally disconnected fields and show that they are fundamentally the same thing. I no longer think that's what category theory is about, but you might be interested in the first impressions of a layman. Derek.
I have heard about this from other people too, but no one has ever had an actual citation. Who says categories are "the order of the world" or anything like that?
-Colin