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8:11 PM
Guys, how does knowing that one functor is left adjoint to another (well understood) functor help? For instance, turning associative algebras into Lie algebras is easy, while the construction the other way around is somewhat more involved. However, the latter functor is left adjoint to the former, and hence completely characterized by the former - and therefore "in a sense it's all you need to know", as stated by my book.
But what does it tell us? I mean I know that (co)limits are preserved, but there must be more?
 
8:22 PM
in some categories, being a left/right adjoint is equivalent to preserving co-/-limits
in more general cases, being an adjoint is equivalent to preserving (co)limits plus some horribly cryptic conditions
but I'm not exactly sure what you're looking for
in concrete cases, one usually cares about adjoints, because of the property $Hom(FX,Y)=Hom(X,GY)$, of course
 
doesn't bother to greet categorical Sha
 
adjoints are just fuzzy equivalences
 
equivalences are just fuzzy adjoints
 
gets a headache
 
Dr. Shifrin
I would like to paste some more of my work from your assigned exercises
After you cleared up the wording on *16., I believe I have a result
 
8:44 PM
OK.
 
#*16.

b) We are given that $\forall i \in \mathbb{Z}^+, \forall x_i \in \mathbb{R}, f(x_1 + \dots + x_n) = f(x_1) + \dots + f(x_n).$ We claim that $\exists c \in \mathbb{R}, \forall x \in \mathbb{Q}, f(x) = cx.$

First, note that $f(1 + 0) = f(1) = f(1) + f(0) \Rightarrow f(0) = 0.$ Thus, certainly any $c$ will work for $f(0) = c0 = 0.$ Assume that $k \in \mathbb{Z} \setminus \{ 0 \}.$ Notice that $\sum_{1}^k \frac{1}{k} = 1.$ Then we have that $f \left( \sum_1^k \frac{1}{k} \right) = \sum_{1}^k f \left( \frac{1}{k} \right) = k f \left( \frac{1}{k} \right) = f(1).$ Dividing by the nonzero
 
Yup, once you did the induction earlier, it's a piece of cake. It's interesting, though, because without continuity you can have zillions of functions on $\Bbb R$ with this property on $\Bbb Q$.
 
@ShaVuklia I think Thorgott has given the right answer in the wrong language. The point is: to understand an object, understand what it does (what its maps to other things are). That'd the viewpoint of Yoneda, stated more clearly.
 
For *17, I am not very certain how to prove that f(x) = x for all real x, though.
 
Here is a concrete example. The free group functor is adjoint to the functor Gp -> Set which forgets the group structure. OK, sure, you can understand the free group as reduced words with concatenation blah blah blah and this viewpoint is useful for proving things. But that's now how I think of a free group at first blush.
 
8:47 PM
Yeah, @polite, that's pretty nifty.
 
To me, the free group on a set is important because a map from it is uniquely determined by what the generating set does, and it can do whatever it likes.
This is the POV which leads to presentations of groups, which most mathematicians will agree are important.
 
So Spivak does drop some steps and hints for you. @polite
 
And it's also precisely the "adjoint functor POV". Hom_{Gp}(F(S), G) = Hom_{Set}(S, U(G)), where U means "underlying set".
 
I know, I did the first two yesterday, and you said they worked, but (c) is giving me some trouble. It does say that “if you've been paying attention to the philosophical remarks for the last two chapters, you will know what to do”
But unfortunately I am not a subset of those people, given that I've... not read the book
 
LOL, yes.
 
8:49 PM
The point is that there's nothing special about this example, either. To understand maps out of FX, you just need to understand maps into GY. And you've told me G is well understood.
 
It will be proved in Chapter 8 or so, but every positive number has a square root.
 
And regarding this example I can't think of much more well understood than the underlying set of a group
 
Oh? But how do I prove this now?
 
He expects you to use it now.
It takes a discussion of least upper bounds to prove it.
 
yeah, what Mike said is what I was trying to say with my last remark
 
8:55 PM
I'm not sure what I can use. Can I use that $\forall x \in \mathbb{R}, \exists r \in \mathbb{Q}, x < r?$
 
the part before that just addresses "what does being an adjoint give us" in a completely abstract sense
 
And another rational $p$ such that $p < x < r$
I think I can, since spivak hints at something like that, but I am not sure if I have to prove that
So let $p,q \in \mathbb{Q}^+, x \in \mathbb{R}^+$ such that $0 < p < x < r$. It suffices to show that $f(0) = 0 < f(p) = p < f(x) < f(r) = r$
So we want to show that $f(p \cdot p) = p^2 < f(x)^2 < f(r^2) = r^2$
Okay, I may have an idea
 
In the tensor-hom adjunction, $X \rightarrow \mathrm{Hom}(Y,Z)$ are just bilinear maps in category speak right
 
@TedShifrin Lol Ted xD
@MikeMiller Oh right, I still have to internalise Yoneda, but that makes perfect sense
 
*17.
-

Assume on the contrary that $f(x)^2 \ge r^2$ and $f(x)^2 \le p^2$. Then $f(x)^2 \ge r^2 \Rightarrow (f(x) - r)(f(x) + r) \ge 0.$ Since $f$ is not the zero function and $r$ is positive, we have that $f(x) \in (-\infty, -r]\cup [r,\infty).$ Similarly, we have that $f(x)^2 \le p^2 \Rightarrow (f(x) - p)(f(x) + p) \le 0.$ This implies that $f(x) \in [-p,p].$ At the beginning, we assume that $0 < p < x < r \Rightarrow 0 < p^2 < x^2 < r^2.$ This tells us that $-p > -r,$ and so $f(x) \in [-p,-r],$ which implies that for any real positive $x$, the output will be negative.
I think this is a fake proof
 
9:10 PM
it is still polite so at least you don't have to change your name
 
@MikeMiller Right, so in this case the adjointness gives us the universal property of the free group
 
Right!!! Universal properties are actually what the Yoneda lemma is all about!
 
I guess there are prob all kinds of universal properties in that example I referred to, and the adjointness will yield that
 
@MikeMiller and adjoints for that matter
 
Cools, thx for clarifying ~
 
9:13 PM
Take the disjoint union. When you actually write it down, you have to do some stupid construction for technical reasons. Like you take X x {0} and Y x {1} and their union, to make sure the underlying sets don't intersect for stupid set theory reasons.
But nobody cares about that actual construction. They care that C(X disjoint Y, Z) = C(X, Z) x C(Y, Z). A map from the disjoint-union is a map from each of its input spaces.
And this property is enough to characterize the disjoint-union.
 
@user2103480 Is there any salvaging my fakeproof?
 
@politeproofs sorry, that was just banter. what is the problem statement?
 
If you have a space, I dunno, D, and a pair of maps f: X -> D and g: Y -> D, so that the map C(D, Z) -> C(X, Z) x C(Y, Z) given by h mapsto (hf, hg) is a bijections, then D is homeomorphic to the disjoint-union in an essentially unique way.
 
Ye, universal properties are the best
 
If $f(x)=0$ for all $x$, then $f$ satisfies $f(x+y)=f(x)+f(y)$ for all $x$ and $y$ and also $f(x \cdot y)=f(x) \cdot f(y)$ for all $x$ and $y$. Now suppose that $f$ satisfies these two properties, but that $f(x)$ is not always 0 . Prove that $f(x)=x$ for all $x,$ as follows:
(a) Prove that $f(1)=1$.
(b) Prove that $f(x)=x$ if $x$ is rational.
(c) Prove that $f(x)>0$ if $x>0$. (This part is tricky, but if you have been paying attention to the philosophical remarks accompanying the problems in the last two chapters, you will know what to do.)
Part c)
 
9:16 PM
Precisely, there is a unique homomorphism q: X disjoint Y -> D so that qi_X = f and qi_Y = g.
If you can prove that then you have actually written a proof of Yoneda.
 
@ShaVuklia then you will like adjoints
 
This is what Yoneda says. To understand something, understand its maps. I like for students to see this first with a concrete example like this unburdened by the categorical generality
 
@user2103480 yes, and those are linear maps out of the Hom, which is the point of the tensor
 
@Thorgott okay, and I've now also remembered what kind of general thing this is. Tensor product is the right adjoint to internal hom
 
yeeees
you're speaking the language of the gods
 
9:18 PM
a d v a n c e d c u r r y i n g
in my models of set theory oral exam I used a slightly different proof where I curried instead of working with $X \times Y \rightarrow Z$ and when I said "I just use currying here" they were like "uh what's that"
the divide between set theorists and type theorists is wide
 
hmmm
there's some sort of "new type of theorist" meme
can't quite see what it should be though
 
you see meme potential in there?
 
Well there's the overused new type of guy meme
Just pattern matching over here
 
in my mind I'd rather have the one where the guy stands in the corner at the party
"they don't know I know the term currying"
 
That's a good one
 
9:27 PM
chad set theorist

doesnt know what currying even means, just does it
doesn't care whether $2 \in \pi$ is a sensible statement
ontology is clear
 
its a trick that represents a $n$ parameter function as a one parameter function that returns a $n-1$ parameter function.
 
Does anyone know how I can fix my fakeproof?
 
what does the $x \rightarrow 0| \infty$ mean?
 
lol
why are the wedges so massive
 
9:44 PM
@copper.hat exactly
 
sry, coming late to the game :-)
 
no worries, that's a way of life
although a wizard is never late
 
10:09 PM
hey I have what feels like a super basic homework problem that I am stuck on.
This is taken from MIT OCW 18.02 pset 1.
I have a vector A, which is expressed as A = a*i + b*j
and I am trying to write an expression for A' in terms of a and b, where A' is A rotated 90deg.

I feel like I am most of the way there, (for the purpose of working out this problem I'm letting A' = u*i + v*j)

I have a/b = - v/u and seperatly a^2 + b^2 = v^2 + u^2

intuitivly, I can see that a,b can equal (-v,u) or (u,-v) [because I can see that in the diagrams I have drawn]....But is there a way to get there from the
 
@user2103480 Koepke has entered the chat
@Thorgott I'm in awe at the size of this lad
 
@AlessandroCodenotti angrily
revealed: physicists do logic
 
Doe anyone know how I could fix my fake proof above?
 
a property?
 
Wow that is beautiful handwriting
What application is that?
 
10:21 PM
That is stochastic analysis applied to trajectories of particles
in some fluid
 
10:47 PM
Some of you might enjoy sokyokuban.com
 
solved my problem. In general is this a bad place to come for help with homework problems?
(if yes where would be better?)
 
Sorry, I didn't see your question Andrew
The way I would do it is in the complex plane
Notice that you want $(a + bi)e^{\pi i/2}$
So you just compute that. Alternatively, you could use a rotation matrix.
 
cool, though both of those answers are a bit beyond my intuitions, so I'm guessing that probably answers my second question about htis being a bad place to turn to :P
 
Well, I learnt about rotating a complex number in the complex plane in algebra 2, and that seems to be a multivariable calculus course
 
cool, I never got comfortable with complex numbers
 
10:57 PM
I think you should learn about them now
I'm no professor, but I do think it is pedagogically sound to teach them before any vectors
Since $\mathbb{C}$ is essentially the same vector space as $\mathbb{R}^2$
And operations in $\mathbb{C}$ are more intuitive in my opinion, yet they transfer over perfectly
 
@Astyx beautiful
 
@politeproofs , so something like this then?
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-702-algebra-ii-spring-2011/syllabus/
 
@AndrewMicallef No, I meant pickup a pre-calculus or algebra book for middleschool/highschool students.
 
@AndrewMicallef Nothing wrong with coming here with homework problems. People may or may not be interested in responding though (which says nothing about you or your Q's, just the taste of people in the room at the time!)
 
That's where you learn this in the detail that I mentioned above
 
11:03 PM
I tend not to get too deep into vector calculus problems, eg, because I do enough of that for the day job
I think there's nothing wrong with posting on the main website though in any case
 
I'm conflicted about the main site and homework, In the past I have seen questions being flagged in programming for being too much like homework. does that sort of thing happen in maths too?
seems like this addresses my issue, https://math.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1803/how-to-ask-a-homework-question?noredirect=1&lq=1

I'm glad to see that asking a homework question is unlikley to get the answer I fear (ie the answer to the question at hand)
 
If it's an assignment for a class (where you're being evaluated on your work) you shouldn't be posting it there (or really here), since we're probably not authorized resources for your course and not supposed to be part of what you're being evaluated on
The thing that often happens is questions are closed for "lack of context" aka you posted something which is transcribed as a homework problem and didn't talk about what you did, why you're stuck, etc. Irritates people --- feels rude
 
Yeah, of course
 
You'd be surprised at how not "of course" that is for a lot of folks :)
But if you explain what you're stuck on, what you're looking for, should be fine. And if you only want a hint and you say so in the Q I'd hope answerers would respect that
 
I'm very much not in that boat, I think If I was following an actual course, or enrolled in one I would address my coursemates instead
@MikeMiller I probably wouldn't but as soon as you said it I immediatly see your poiint
 
11:13 PM
Yeah I got as much from you mentioning it was the MIT open courseware thing
 
I'm just a middleaged mechanic trying to learn just enough maths to understand how magnets work ;P
 
Yeah you'll be fine.
 
Also I wouldn't feel shame picking up a book that you deem 'below' you
 
Maybe @amWhy knows more about current question standards on the site
 
If you didn't learn about complex numbers, they'll only get more complicated later on, not less, I would say.
 
11:14 PM
@robjohn Before transforming into the pink Easter Bunny this Easter, try out a day or two as the "mean heart", in honor of Valentine's day, Feb 14th?
@MikeMiller huh? ;-)
Hi, @Mike!! ;D
 
all G @amWhy, you were pinged about question standards re homework, but I think I got to the bottom of it, so you can return to whatever you were doing before :P
 
Andrew M was asking about posting questions that might be misconstrued as homework from a class. I haven't paid attention to what the current expectations of questions askers are in years though, and I know you are active in that stuff.
 
It won't be construed as homework if the context in which the question emerges. Questions from users in other professions, trying to pick up some knowledge on the side, often don't read as a text's imperative: "Solve x, y, z." Some of the best questions emerge from other contexts.
@AndrewMicallef No problem. I think Mike pinged me after I already entered the room to pester @robjohn ;D.
 
lol, so from above, a question of the form "Explain how I might convert this equation I don't understand into computer code" might actually be a good question?
(that is why I'm trying to learn multivariate calc rn btw
 
There are some examples in that page as well
 
11:23 PM
@AndrewMicallef That would make a decent start, but understand that mathematicians aren't necessarily coders!
 
thanks polite, I appreciate it
 
FYI, if you keep doing that course I am sure they'll go over matrices eventually, which is where they will (certainly) cover this.
 
@AndrewMicallef Yeah, just make sure to put your thoughts in there. Try not to make it too long and rambly, that's a tendency some have that turns people off. But "I get this, but not that..." is usually well received
 
yeah, matrices crop up a little later in the problem set I'm working through
 
@MikeMiller I need you to help me convince @robjohn to be a mean red heart for Valentine's Day, and a Pink Easter Bunny for Easter. (Mean Green Shamrock in between is optional)!
 
11:28 PM
So something like, I think I understand what vectors are, and the constants in this equation I don't understand, but it involes a type of integral over a function I don't know how to compute, how should I procede?
 
Sure, I bet that'd be great
 
@AndrewMicallef Yes!
 
No different than programming, though, @AndrewMicallef: You iterate. Try your first question, see how people respond, figure out what to adjust for your next... :)
@amWhy I like to see what happens to avatars, not influence them :)
 
Yeah I'm not a programmer either, in my line of work it is get it right first time, or lie through your teeth like you didn't f* it up in the first place
:P
 
@MikeMiller Hah! Okay!
 
11:30 PM
You can even automate it: make a script that posts your question every few minutes with minor changes!
 
that sounds like a lot of work
 
I'm joking
I think that's something that actually happens (or has happend) however
 
@AndrewMicallef Yes, but I imagine most engineers try to modify approach so they can lie less :)
 
30+ new accounts posting the same question with essentially the exact same text
 
Engineers are great, and I don't think they lie (I'm literally a mechanic that changes oil and filters on cars)
 
11:33 PM
Lol, whatever, I still believe you iterate, since that's what learning is :P
Sounds like engineering to me anyway
 
I'm trying to show why for $X\subset\mathbb P^n$ closed, and $Y$ any algebraic varity, $Z\subset X\times Y$ closed means that $Z\subset\mathbb P^n\times Y$ is closed. I'm hesitant about trying to show this using the explicit construction of the product (I'm guessing that showing that $Z$ is locally closed is a way to do it). However, before I do try that, is it possible to use the universal property and do it quickly?
 
@MikeMiller +1 (Do you frequent matheducators.se?)
 
No, I don't like to post much anymore. I am in the chats mainly as a force of habit.
 
@MikeMiller I hear you. I don't post much either, anymore. For awhile now. But very good to see you here!
 
👌🗿
 
11:37 PM
@ShaVuklia What's your def of an algebraic variety?
 
Anything that's locally affine
So if we have $(X,\mathcal O_X)$, then we want $(U,\mathcal O_X\vert U)\cong (Y,\mathcal O_Y)$ where $Y\subset A^n$ closed
 
I think it comes down to the fact that closed immersions are stable under base change?
 
What's an immersion in this case?
 
$Z\to \Bbb P^n$
 
So injective morphism?
 
11:39 PM
Oh, huh a closed immersion is a map that identifies the domain to a closed subset of the codomain
For the same-name concept in differential geometry, see immersion (mathematics).In algebraic geometry, a closed immersion of schemes is a morphism of schemes f : Z → X {\displaystyle f:Z\to X} that identifies Z as a closed subset of X such that locally, regular functions on Z can be extended to X. The latter condition can be formalized by saying that f # : O...
(shame on me for linking wikipedia)
 
immersions have to be injective? pain
 
Oh no sry I just didn't know the definition
 
@Astyx What's wrong with Wikipedia?
 
Egh well, if I have to dive into closed immersions, then I might as well try proving it locally
 
Then my argument sucks
 
11:41 PM
here's what you meant to link, of course ncatlab.org/nlab/show/closed+immersion+of+schemes
 
thanks :D
 
I'm confused why it was mentioned so casually in my reader though, but I guess whatevs
 
@politeproofs Some articles are good, others are very lacking imo, and others are just plain wrong
 
11:45 PM
@MikeMiller lmfao
 
I thought that page was actually pretty good.
 
What is this website, by the way?
@KarlKroningfeld Well, I think you could stick that one paragraph at the end of the second link in that page as well.
 
"These name but a few of many trigonometric identities, facility in which can serve as a modern-day shibboleth or barrier of passage in high school or lower-level undergraduate courses in mathematics. They seem also to be popular in mathematics education in India and appear regularly in entrance examinations there. But the ones listed above are the most fundamental."
 
I can't tell if this is a joke website
 
11:59 PM
May I ask something, like x^2+5x+6 is factorable even if you change the plus signs into minus. What is the name for this identity?
 

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