Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site unc.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!mcnc!unc!bts From: bts@unc.UUCP (Bruce Smith) Newsgroups: net.math Subject: Re: What is ADJ? Message-ID: <6788@unc.UUCP> Date: Sun, 19-Feb-84 22:28:52 EST Article-I.D.: unc.6788 Posted: Sun Feb 19 22:28:52 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 21-Feb-84 03:43:45 EST References: <4916@rochester.UUCP> Organization: CS Dept., U. of N. Carolina at Chapel Hill Lines: 48 Strange are the ways the networks function-- when they do at all, that is. I passed the question along to Don Stanat, a theoretician on our faculty, and he passed it along a bit further... Well, here is an answer, come back along the same path: D From: Don StanatS Subject: a question t To: bts@unc a n I've long since lost the address of the person who asked the question, a but here is the answer. Would you be so kind as to pass it along to t him? J From: Jim Thatcher i Subject: Why should the world wonder m To: stanat.unc@csnet-relay T h I don't think I can get into the rochester ARPA node - more precisely, a I have no idea how to do it. Beyond that a previous note to you was t returned to me. If this gets through, please acknowledge and pass on c the useless information. h e Goguen, Thatcher, Wagner and Wright began working together at IBM in 1973 r on algebraic methods in computer science. Thrilled with what they found - there they were writing a paper on factorizations which was neat. But J they decided they needed an introduction to Category Theory for Computer i Scientists for that paper. That introduction expanded to a report and m ultimately to a series of seven reports. Then the first of the planned T seven reports itself expanded into three parts of which exactly two h were written. The never finished seried was called "A Junction Between a Category Theory and Computer Science: N, Part J" where 1<=N<=7 and t 1<=J<=3. "A Junction ... " was a weak play on the key word c "adjunction" of categorical algebra and around IBM at the time they h referred to the series of papers as the ADJ series. One of the reasons e that less than 1/7 of the series was ever completed was that the r authors started writing papers based on what they found working - on the magnum opus (Initial Algebra Semantics ..., Rational Algebraic J Theories ..., ...). These received quite a good response and some i of the authors (lower in the alphabet) started getting tired of being m referred to as "et. al." in the context of Goguen, et. al. So they T started mixing up authors names in publications and so as to a have the relevant publications in a bunch, referring to them as t ADJ. And that's where it started. c h The source is now forgotten (thank goodness), but a simpler explanation e was offered -- A Dumb Joke! r - Jim