Timeline for History of "natural transformations"
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
6 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 6, 2017 at 22:02 | comment | added | Carlo Beenakker | perhaps its like the person who learns that they "have been speaking prose all their life without knowing it" ... | |
| Dec 6, 2017 at 21:48 | comment | added | Mahdi Majidi-Zolbanin | @ Carlo: Even Eilenberg and Maclane themselves in the paper that you linked say: "Frequently in modern mathematics there occur phenomena of "naturality": a "natural "isomorphism between two groups or between two complexes, a "natural" homeomorphism of two spaces andthelike. We here propose a precise definition of the "naturality" of such correspondences, as a basis for an appropriate general theory." It seems to me that they are saying that the notion of "naturally" existed already and that they "propose a definition" of it here. | |
| Dec 6, 2017 at 20:54 | comment | added | Todd Trimble | Actually Kromer does mention the 1942 paper. | |
| Dec 6, 2017 at 20:44 | comment | added | Mahdi Majidi-Zolbanin | Thank you for pointing that out, Carlo. I have edited my question and made it more accurate. The claim is that "natural transformations" were already in use in mathematics even before the 1942 paper, without having a precise definition. | |
| Dec 6, 2017 at 20:15 | comment | added | Robert Furber | Functors are defined on the second page of that paper (though only for the category of groups). | |
| Dec 6, 2017 at 18:07 | history | answered | Carlo Beenakker | CC BY-SA 3.0 |