Contractibility as uniqueness

The colloquium will also be available through Zoom.
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https://pitt.zoom.us/j/99400392432
Meeting ID: 994 0039 2432
Passcode: 032779

Friday, December 3, 2021 - 15:30 to 16:30

Thackeray Hall 704

Speaker Information
Emily Riehl
Johns Hopkins University

Abstract or Additional Information

What does it mean for something to exist uniquely? Classically, to say that a set A has a unique element means that there is an element x of A and any other element y of A equals x. When this assertion is applied to a space A, instead of a mere set, and interpreted in a continuous fashion, it encodes the statement that the space is contractible, i.e., that A is continuously deformable to a point. This talk will explore this notion of contractibility as uniqueness and its role in generalizing from ordinary categories to infinite-dimensional categories.

Research Area