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terminal_morphism [2014/07/21 16:49]
nikolaj
terminal_morphism [2014/09/26 15:58]
nikolaj
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 ==== Discussion ==== ==== Discussion ====
 Note that the name "​terminal //​morphisms//"​ for $\langle B,​\phi\rangle$ is slightly confusing, because the data is not just the morphism $\phi$ going from $F(B)$ to $Z$, but also the object $B$.  Note that the name "​terminal //​morphisms//"​ for $\langle B,​\phi\rangle$ is slightly confusing, because the data is not just the morphism $\phi$ going from $F(B)$ to $Z$, but also the object $B$. 
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-Terminal and [[initial morphism]]s (the opposite notion, where you just flip some arrows) are called universal morphisms. They are a very important concept with a ridiculously broad range of examples, because you can essentially translate all "​forall-there exists such that" characterizations to a "there is a universal morphism such that" characterizations. Another remark: Under a certain condition (namely that the construction works for all objects of a cateogry), the universal morphism gives an adjoint functor pair and indeed all adjoint functor pairs can be seen to arise that way. 
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-In the following I'm going to elaborate what's going on a bit: 
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-The main category you work in is ${\bf C}$. You fix an object $Z:​\mathrm{Ob}_{\bf C}$ and what you want to do is to specify a special object and morphism with respect to it. 
-Examples: ​ 
-  * You are given an object $Z$, which stores the information about two objects $X$ and $Y$. You want to characterize the product $X\times Y$ and the associated projection maps $\pi_1$ and $\pi_2$. With sets, that's the Cartesian product, but it also works with groups, respecting concatenation,​ or with topological spaces, this automatically introduces the product topology. ​ 
-  * Say you already know what products $\times$ for your category are. Given an object $Z$, you want to characterize exponential objects $Z^Y$ and evaluation map $\mathrm{eval}:​Z^Y\times Y\to Z$. For example, in the category of sets, if $Y$ and $Z$ are objects, then the hom-set from $Y$ to $Z$ is of course the function space $Y\to Z$, and $Z^Y$ is exactly that space //as object of // ${\bf Set}$. 
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-What the above definition says is the following: First you want to specify a smaller world within ${\bf C}$. You do this by setting up another category ${\bf D}$ and mapping it into ${\bf C}$ with a functor $F$. The image of $F$ is your smaller world. The universal morphism $\phi$ is then defined by demanding that every arrow from this small world, which tries to connect with the object $Z$, must pass through $\phi$. In other words (and now comes the definition):​ For all objects $B$ in ${\bf D}$, if $\psi$ is an arrow in ${\bf C}$ from $FB$ to $Z$, then there must be an arrow $f$ within ${\bf D}$, so that $\phi$ is really just a combination of "small world business"​ $F(f)$, followed by the kind of gate function $\phi$, finally leading to $Z$. For the reason that everything going on in the image of $F$ must pass to $Z$ only through $\phi$, one says $\phi$ is the terminal morphism "from the functor $F$ to the object $Z$". 
  
 == Example: The exponential object and currying == == Example: The exponential object and currying ==
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 $\mathrm{hom}(X\times Y,Z)$ being isomorphic to $\mathrm{hom}(X,​Z^Y)$. The nice thing is, of course, that this doesn'​t just work for categories with function, but the same construction also works when reasoning about logic, where currying then is the tautology ​ $\mathrm{hom}(X\times Y,Z)$ being isomorphic to $\mathrm{hom}(X,​Z^Y)$. The nice thing is, of course, that this doesn'​t just work for categories with function, but the same construction also works when reasoning about logic, where currying then is the tautology ​
 $\left((A\land B)\implies C\right)\Leftrightarrow \left(A\implies(B\implies C)\right)$. $\left((A\land B)\implies C\right)\Leftrightarrow \left(A\implies(B\implies C)\right)$.
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-=== Adjoint functors === 
-To state the definition again, with a little different notation: A terminal morphism from $F$ to $X$ is a pair $\langle O_X,​\varepsilon_X\rangle$,​ where $\varepsilon_X:​FO_X\to X$, such that for any $f:FY\to X$, there is a morphism $g_f:Y\to O_X$ in the other category, so that $f$ factors as $f=\varepsilon_X\circ F(g_f)$. 
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-Now if that construction happens to work for all $X$, then it gives rise for the dual initial morphism construction in the other category as follows: By assumption now, for all $X$, there is a universal morphism $\langle O_X,​\varepsilon_X\rangle$ from $F$ to $X$. In particular, the factoring works for the identity morphism at $FY$, i.e. $\mathrm{id}_{FY}=\varepsilon_Y\circ F(g_{\mathrm{id}_{FY}})$ with $g_{\mathrm{id}_{FY}}:​FY\to O_{FY}$. We denote the so constructed morphism by $\eta_Y:​=f_{\mathrm{id}_{FY}}$ and it's the pendant of $\varepsilon_X$ in the other category. We can now introduce a functor $G$ by setting the object map $GX:=O_X$ and the arrow map such that the following diagram commutes 
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-{{adjointfunctorsymmetry.png}} 
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-Even more, we find $\varepsilon:​\mathrm{nat}(FG,​1_{\bf C})$ and $\eta:​\mathrm{nat}(1_{\bf D},GF)$. Therefore, all of this is equivalent to the gadgetry defined in [[counit-unit adjunction]]. 
  
 === Reference === === Reference ===
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