Chapter 14 Universal Properties

Fruit Crumble

In making Fruit Crumble, you can substitute one fruit for another, but not use
tomatoes (a vegetable).
By thinking of tomatos as vegetables, we are characterising them by the *role* they
play in our food, vs by intrinsic characteristics (by bioology, tomato is just as
much a 'fruit' as an apple) . Even so, but they are a still bizarre "fruit" in the
context of making fruit crumble.

When we refer to tomatoes as fruits, and peanuts as nuts (biologically they are a
type of bean) we have the implict context of human foods and cooking.

(HtBPi) This is an example of *everyday language* where we characterize something

by the role it plays in a context rather than by its inherent characteristics.

If you insist on referring to tomatoes as fruits all the time, or refuse to

consider peanuts as a nut because they are really a bean and not a nut, you are
ignoring the context of these foods and the relationships they have with the other
foods around us.

CT studies (1) contexts (2) relationships. This enables CT to study the 'roles
things play'.

Some things can be characterized *completely* by their relationships (_ and so hold

across all contexts?).

E.g adding zero to a number gives that number.

Such relationships (- the relationship of zero to any number) is something CT looks

for , and such relationships are called 'Universal Properties'

Cinderella - The Only Person That Fits The

Shoe

Prince Charming does not go around looking for Cinderella by *name*. He goes around
with a glass slipper - i.e he is looking for a person with a specific
characteristic - her foot fits that particular slipper. This is like refering to
someone as 'the Prime Minister' (role) than by name and personality.

CT does this in maths, i.e it characterizes (mathematical) objects by how they

*relate* to others.

e.g
I think of a number.
If I add it to one I get one.
If I add it to two I get two.
If I add it to any number X i get X.
What is it?

Here the number we are looking for is *specified by* its relation to other numbers
(_ here by a universal relation)

Similarly for multiplication and 1.

but for

"I am thinking of a number.If I square it I get 4? What is it?"

We have to answer "2 *or* -2".

Important: there is *more than one* correct answer.

CT tries to characterizes things in such a a way that there is only *one* correct
answer, 'so we pin down the role this thing plays concretely'.

finding a property that characterizes a mathematical object *uniquely* is one of

the important aspects of a universal property (_ vague sentence.
is she saying that universal properties characterize (some) mathematical objects
uniquely?)

'universal' does not mean the property holds universally for all objects. (_ what
does it mean then?). It is more like a universal key that works in all locks (??? I
*think* this means that it is a property that holds for *one* object in all (many?)
contexts)

North Pole, South Pole - Looking At The

Extremities(_ extremes)

North and South poles as 'atypical extremes' wrt places on the globe. They have
unique characteristics, studying of which can give us information about the rest of
the world (which is not extreme).

CT tries to find the 'atypical extreme poles' of each mathematical world, even if
the rest of the world does not exhibit 'extremeness'. Study of extremes still gives
us information about the world.

(step)
Once we know what the relationships between objects in a mathematical world are, we
can explicitly look for 'extremes'.
example:
- the smallest possible set is the empty set.
- the largest possible sets are infinite sets which have interesting
mathematical properties.

These are examples of 'universal properties' that tell us about 'special objects'
with respect to some universe.
We are not just saying something is big, which is *a* property.
We are saying something is the big*gest*, or something which is mathematically a
superlative - like we are fascinated by the tallest building, the highest
waterfall, etc in the real world.

Takeaway: CT looks for extremes in mathematical worlds (and these are somehow
related to univ props? PO! universal properties characterize extremes in a
mathematical world? this is never spelt out)

Example: With (the mathematical world/concept of) groups, the smallest group is one
with just the identity element, because the definition of a group is that it must
have an identity element, so there is no 'empty group'.

A less obvious but more mathematical important type of extremity within a category
(== objects and arrows) isthe concept of initial and terminal objects.

If an object in a category is the source of *exactly one* arrow *to every other
object in the category*, it is an initial object). Similarly a 'terminal object' is
one that is the *target* of *exactly one* arrow from every other object.

For the lattice of factors of 30, 1 is the initial object and 30 is the terminal
object.

(KEY) for the category containing all possible sets (as objects) and all possible
functions between them (as arrows), the initial object is the empty set and the
terminal object is any set with one object.

Why this is true.

The arrows are functions.
A function f : A -> B is a way of 'sending every object in A to an object in B'.
(note: it can't send one object in A to *different* objects in B)
Whether the process can be expressed as a simple expression like x^2 is not
important. The process can remain mysterious.

If B has only one object, then every object in A has to be sent to it. So the only
function (arrow) possible sends every object in A to *that* object in B. So there
is *exactly* one function (arrow) between any set A and B, when B has only one
member. (what about the null set? Is there an arrow between the null set and B?)

Similarly if A contains no elements, there is exactly one machine that doesn't do

anything (_but what does this function look like?) so it is an initial object.

Big Fish In A Small Pond - Moving To A Different World To

Become An Extremity There

In CT if there is more than one obect with the same property, we can tighten the
property (to exclude 'fitting in' objects) or look at a narrower world (in which
there is only one object with that property)

Earlier: given a category we can find objects that are equivalent, or we could
start with objects we want to be equivalent, and find a category where they are.

The same thing works with universal properties.

given a context we could look for objects that are universal, *or* we could start
with objects we *want* to be universal, and look for a context where that is true.

Why is the smallest possible group both initial and terminal?

The key is to understand the relationnship (arrows) between groups (objects).

An arrow A --> B when A and B are groups, is just like functions between sets with
the added constraint that 'addition has to work sensibly through the transition'
i.e if you 'send' a1 to b1 and a2 to b2 then a1 + a1 must == b1 + b2
this implies that the identity element in A has to be 'sent' to the identity
element in B.

So if group A has *only* the identity element, you have no choice but to send it to
(exactly) the identity element in B. I.e, for any group B there is exactly one
arrow between A and B, so A is an initial object.

If B has exactly one element (and you want the 'addition axiom to hold) you have no
choice but to send every element in A to the single identity element in B. So there
is exactly one 'function + addition preservation' arrow between A and B for any A.
So B is terminal.

so, a group with only identity element in it works as both initial and terminal
object in the category of groups.

Big Garden - When Becoming Superlative Is a Burden

Having 'the biggest' garden in the world is not necessarily a good thing. A smaller
garden within your ability to care for it might be better.
In CT, 'extremes' are often *illuminating* but they may not be the most 'usable' in
a specific context.

Example: The 12 hour clock is not 'universal' because it is essentially an

arbitrary construct we have imposed to measure time.
But it is practical in real life .

What is the universal property that causes the natural numbers to arise by counting
forever?

Erdos - When Minimalism Helps Us See What is What

CT seeks to characterize things by the role they play *but also* (KEY) thinks up a
role then goes around looking for something that plays the role *in the most
minimal way*, without extraneous features, so the role and the thing characterize
each other.

which leads us to-

Putting The Natural In Natural Numbers

What is universal about numbers? 'you start with 1, and just keep counting forever'

In CT this is 'free' - you start with a context, you start with something and
proceed freely, not imposing any extra rules but those that come with the context.

The context for natural numbers is something called a 'monoid' . This is something
like a group, so we can add things up in any order we want, but without the rule
saying that everything has an inverse, 'so we don't worry about negative numbers'
(??)

Now we start with just the number one and we 'make the monoid' (??) 'freely' i.e we
can add any number of 1 s and put brackets around them in any order, and we are not
going to impose any more rules, and all we do is keep adding 1s up.

So the natural numbers are the free monoid starting from the number 1

Integers are the free *group* starting from the number 1

In CT we can make free $objects starting from other things as well.

we can make 'free groups' from any set of things.

we can 'forget' the extra structure of a group to get a set.

likewise we can 'freely' build a ring (like a group, but with multiplication) from
a group.
we can 'forget' extra structure from a ring and get a group.

'building freely' and 'forgetting structure' are a *kind* of opposite but they are
not really inverses.

Exploring More Universal Properties.

1 + 1 = 2 . Or is it?
(essentially looks at a bunch of number systems)

with a 2 clock ( two 'markers' 0,1 1+1 = 2 = 0)

on a base 7 number system, 5 + 3 = 8 = 6 + 2 = 2

base 4 number system 0,1,2,3

5 + 3 = 8 = 3

'it doesn't count' is a decent answer, but better is 'it doesn't count (_ that way)
in *this* world' (_ of natural numbers or integers or whatever). We can go look for
the world in which these equations make sense.

We can check if these number systems follow the axioms we came up with for numbers
order of additions doesn't matter, brackets don't matter, there is a number
that acts like zero, there are numbers that act like negatives.

binary complement system. elided.

extreme notions of distance.

extreme notions of category

to move from one category to the next, we must 'send' objects in one category to
objects in the other, and also send arrows in the first to arrows in the second,
and composition amongst objects has to transfer correctly too (like addition in the
transfer to the groups)

Finding a universal property in CT not only tells you something about the object in
question, but also it means that you can look for things that have the same
universal property in other contexts. (_ so 0 in natural numbers corresponds to
null set in sets?), and it gives you interesting points of comparison between the
worlds.

Some examples of mathematical objects that are comparable via universal properties.

1. adding up numbers can be seen as 'the same' as union of sets. as also (in
topology) gluing surfaces together, . These are all a type of 'colimit' which means
they have a particular kind of universal property.
 2. multiplying numbers are 'the same' as taking minimum or maximum of two
numbers, looping a circle to create a doughnut etc.
3. the natural numbers are 'the same' as integers, but not the rational
numbers.

Some CT on (3) is that natural numbers and integers are 'freely generated' by
adding (and in the case of integers, also subtracting, ) repeatedly from 1.

but real numbers are *not* freely generated. There is no real number from which you
can generate all the others by 'freely' adding and subtracting.
In CT terms, natural numbers form a monoid.
The integers form a group, with addition as 'the binary operator'.
Real numbers form a (mathematical structure called) a field. There is addition,
subtraction, multiplication, division with everything except zero.

The category of monoids and the category of groups all have good universal objects
in them. The category of all fields does not.

(KEY) Universal properties are a clue for how we should move from one mathematical
world to another.
One of the satisfying things about category theory is that you can keep getting
more and more abstract until more and more things 'become the same', and so can be
studied at the same time.

all concepts are kan extensions

is a CT joke.