Back from NASSLLI

NASSLLI2012 was great, too many great courses to follow, too many interesting people to chat to, too little time to do everything.

Now I realize that I haven't been paying any attention to recording/collecting stuff that I have been doing and, age being what it is, I forget what I have done. and also what I have not done yet...

so I will try another round of blog-post-its, in the hopes that when I finally get my Bham account unlocked and my G'sites account working, life will be easier.

First off: Jean-Yves Beziau and Marcelo Coniglio organized a book in honor of Walter Carnielli's 60th Birthday. I did manage to get a paper on constructive modal logic in, yay!

NASSSLLI Intro to Cats: Slides for the five days...

Slides are here.

With apologies for the delay...

Homework 2?

Check this short homework out. Slides after the class.

Category Theory for all, June 18, 2012

The slides for today's lecture are here.

Hopefully a not-crazy-jumping pdf, but instead one that you can go up and down, at your leisure.

Thanks for the patience with the scrolling issues!
And  thanks for the expert diagnostics after the event.

Please do take a look at the post on  references for introductions to Category Theory, if you can. 

Categorical Proof Theory and Linear Logic

These are some very, very old notes from a course I gave in Prague, at  ESSLLI 1996.

The idea was to present enough basic category theory and enough basic proof theory to discuss the categorical modelling of Linear Logic and ... drum roll...introduce  Dialectica Categories.

(and yes, I also had high expectations of understanding enough about models of Linear Logic to be able to discuss them all and write a book, ha...)

 Now I have reduced my expectations and I simply would like to introduce enough category theory to make the categorical modelling of Intuitionistic Logic plausible (before I wanted to do both intuitionistic and linear logic).

But in compensation I would like to do this in four lectures only, as I wanted to keep the 5th lecture to introduce Glue Semantics,  in the style that a linear logician, especially  a budding one, would understand it. At least this is the plan.

Homework for Cat Theory Day 1: why not?

So you know, I hope, that mathematics is not an spectator's sport.
You need to do the calculations, otherwise the stuff doesn't work.

The good news is that no one will come after you, asking for your grades or anything like it. And that you can come and ask  me questions, if you feel like it.

The bad news is that, if you don't do them (the exercises) you'll end up thinking that you've learnt and sometimes you haven't. Your call, of course.

To sweeten the pill, there's a reading for each day, just for the fun of it.
For the exercises, there are answers on the web, but you should really try to do it, first.

The first treat is “The aims of Education” by Andrew Abbott of the University of Chicago. Only 5 pages and (I find it) a different take on why do we go to college.

Mathematics as we know it...

Frank Quinn had a very interesting article entitled "A REVOLUTION IN MATHEMATICS? WHAT REALLY HAPPENED A CENTURY AGO, AND WHY IT MATTERS TODAY", in the Notices of the AMS, January 2012. You can find it it here.