{"id":564,"date":"2008-08-11T00:17:27","date_gmt":"2008-08-11T05:17:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/?p=564"},"modified":"2008-08-11T01:02:07","modified_gmt":"2008-08-11T06:02:07","slug":"the-prophetic-promise-of-category-theory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/?p=564","title":{"rendered":"The prophetic promise of category theory"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"category-theory.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When it comes to\u00a0 creating the final theory of everything, physicists have an ever broadening (and bewildering) choice of mathematical tricks with which to tackle the mysteries of the universe.<\/p>\n

A couple of years ago, random matrix theory cropped up as a potential framework for a new kind of science<\/a>. And a fascinating idea it is too.<\/p>\n

Talking of a new kind of science, what\u00a0 cellular automatons<\/a> can’t do, isn’t worth knowing, or so we’re told.<\/p>\n

Then there is the non-compact real form of the E8 Lie algebra<\/a>, a surfer’s dream of a final theory.<\/p>\n

Today there’s a new kid on the block called category theory, a kind of stripped down, souped up group theory that has been taking mathematics by storm since it was invented in the 1940s.<\/p>\n

It’s chief claim is that it has become a hugely powerful tool for unifying concepts in mathematics and so is obviously going to do the same for physics. (That kind of reasoning may not be as madcap as it sounds).<\/p>\n

Chief among the category theory evangelists is Bob Croeke at the University of Oxford who today publishes a kind of idiot’s<\/strike> physicists guide to category theory, to give any interested parties a taste for the field.<\/p>\n

“Category theory should become a part of the daily practice of the physicist,” argues Croeke. “The reason for this is not that category theory is a better way of doing mathematics, but that monoidal categories constitute the actual algebra of practicing physics.”<\/p>\n

For an old dog, this will surely be a trick too far. But for any whipper snappers out there, it looks intriguing, no?<\/p>\n

Ref: arxiv.org\/abs\/0808.1032<\/a>: Introducing Categories to the Practicing Physicist<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it comes to\u00a0 creating the final theory of everything, physicists have an ever broadening (and bewildering) choice of mathematical tricks with which to tackle the mysteries of the universe. A couple of years ago, random matrix theory cropped up as a potential framework for a new kind of science. And a fascinating idea it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-changin-the-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/arxivblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}