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Nima Rasekh (Aug 06 2025 at 18:16):Hello y'all!
I am considering organizing a seminar on ACT (applied category theory) for Bachelor students, meaning having students give talks on different papers. As part of that I am trying to gather a list of ACT papers with various applications throughout science (physics, chemistry, biology, computer science, anything).
The main challenge I face is that I need (at least some) papers that require very little category theory background, given that some students don't have a signficant experience.
@David Corfield suggested asking on Zulip, whether anybody has a suggestion how to find papers, which involve different levels of category theory (ranging from mostly using the basic definitions up to advanced categorical concepts).
Any suggestion would be much appreciated!
Kevin Carlson (Aug 06 2025 at 18:33):Spivak and Kent's original paper on ologs was written to have basically no prerequisites, I think, and it's also can serve as the key marker for when the modern field of ACT got started.
Nima Rasekh (Aug 06 2025 at 18:36):Kevin Carlson said:
Spivak and Kent's original paper on ologs was written to have basically no prerequisites, I think, and it's also can serve as the key marker for when the modern field of ACT got started.
Seems fun, thanks a lot!
Ralph Sarkis (Aug 06 2025 at 18:57):You can look into the papers that were listed for the various ACT adjoint school projects.
Nima Rasekh (Aug 06 2025 at 18:59):Thank @Ralph Sarkis !
Yes, @David Corfield did already suggest this (along with Zulip) and I forgot mentioning that, so I am planning on checking those sources out more carefully, but of course it can't hurt to ask for additional papers!
David Corfield (Aug 06 2025 at 19:31):If you were open to considering a book to work through, you might look at
Brendan Fong and David Spivak, Seven Sketches in Compositionality: An Invitation to Applied Category Theory
accompanied by John Baez's associated lectures.
Nima Rasekh (Aug 06 2025 at 19:47):David Corfield said:
If you were open to considering a book to work through, you might look at
Brendan Fong and David Spivak, Seven Sketches in Compositionality: An Invitation to Applied Category Theory
accompanied by John Baez's associated lectures.
Thanks a lot! That has a lot of cool topics, in fact the first chapters seem reasonably accessible.
John Baez (Aug 06 2025 at 20:26):Here's a self-contained expository article on a nice application of category theory to language processing:
Nima Rasekh (Aug 06 2025 at 20:33):John Baez said:
Here's a self-contained expository article on a nice application of category theory to language processing:
- Tai-Danae Bradley, Juan Luis Gastaldi and John Terilla, The structure of meaning in language: parallel narratives in linear algebra and category theory.
Looks interesting, thanks @John Baez ! Gotta now learn some linguistics.