Mathematics Colloquia and Seminars

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Category theory is a relatively recent development of abstract mathematics that serves as a connection between many seemingly disparate branches of study. One of the more general notions in mathematics, a category serves as a unifying foundational structurs for many familiar constructs, including sets, groups, vector spaces, and even logical propositions. We will introduce the notion of a category and some of the consequent properties. Some basic examples and applications will be explored. Time permitting, we will prove uniqueness of some familiar objects such as direct product or tensor product (when they exist) and/or some illustrations of the advantages of such an abstract setting as category theory.