beware! evil search box vs. good search box

#categorytheory #math #nlab #ncatlab

I had a conversation recently where I was asked how I learned about a mathematical topic. I was a bit embarrassed to say that I just checked some very basic definitions on Wikipedia/nLab and then developed the concepts I needed from there myself. This can be a bit of a humble brag, but I really do think this is often easier (for me, at this point) than trying to read a textbook and do all the exercises first.

It's really a shame that publishing practices discourage including much of the material produced by this process in published papers. I don't want to see every paper bloated with rehashed discussions of elementary results, but when a topic is sufficiently arcane there are often no succinct introductions at the desired level, since everyone has written their own and then never published it.

#math #publishing #Wikipedia #nLab

#nLab has an entry on #Currying, but it doesn't (seem to?) mention a sum type #dual. https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/currying #CategoryTheory

I've wanted something like this for a long time, and today I finally got around to figuring out stylus and making a (very simple) #DarkMode style for the #nLab. If you're one of the other people with this narrow intersection of interests, check it out!

https://userstyles.world/style/7543/nlab-dark-mode

I'm sure it can be improved :) I decided this is a case where something shoddy is still way better than nothing, so here we are.

nlab dark mode by nilesjohnson

dark mode for the nlab

I've long known #nLab but still not found how it could be useful for me. How should I develop the nPOV brain?

I haven't seen *nearly* enough #CategoryTheory here, and almost nothing from the #nLab !! So here are some of my most-visited pages, according to my browser history.

https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/Thomason+model+structure

(weak equivalences created by taking nerves)

https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/multicategory

(morphisms can have n-ary source for n > 1)

https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/simplicial+object

(combinatorial version of topological space)

https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/Grothendieck+construction

(convert a general functor into a fibration of slice categories)

Thomason model structure