Dear Marta, It's been a while since we've talked. Hope all is well. I agree with you that Saunders might not thought of this as original work. As it happens in my experience with him it was in how he approached any topic that was illuminating. He's why I wanted category theory. With regards to George's question, yes, he saw them as he personally gave me the now scanned copy. For whatever reason, this course in the latter 70's gave him great joy, of all the courses and seminars I had the pleasure to attend with him. Perhaps, in his mind, this is a form of practical mathematics to share with all (especially the spinning ball part). As far as I know, this may have been the last actual course he taught. cheers, harry On Thu, Oct 26, 2017 at 8:23 PM, Marta Bunge <martabunge@hotmail.com> wrote:

Dear George,

Although I have yet to read the Saunders MacLane's notes on "Geometrical Mechanics" for a course given in Chicago in 1968 in some more detail, just perusing them seems to me that the notes in question are based on several sources which are explicitly mentioned in them and that are well known in the subject matter. I doubt therefore that Saunders himself may have thought of them as original in any way. Doubtless they must have been useful to his students as well as to himself, for instance when writing Chapter VIII (Forms of Space) and Chapter IX (Mechanics) of his very nice book "Mathematics Form and Function", Springer-Verlag, 1968.

I am still not sure myself whether to write "Mac Lane" or "MacLane", and I certainly did not know the story behind his opting for the latter. I am sure that these notes will be useful to anybody not familiar with the material exposed on them, and that we should certainly thank Harry Dole for his having provided us with them.

Sincerely,

Marta

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