Want to take part in these discussions? Sign in if you have an account, or apply for one below
Vanilla 1.1.10 is a product of Lussumo. More Information: Documentation, Community Support.
Danny Stevenson tells me of a quote by VV that goes something along the lines of
category theory is the language of 21st century mathematics
most likely from a talk/presentation. A simple search doesn’t yield any results, perhaps others remember where it is.
Not higher category theory? Wasn’t category theory the language of the second half of the 20th century mathematics?
I haven’t seen Voevodsky on record as saying this, but this kind of saying involving “21st century” used to be attributed to Witten regarding string theory, who however (I finally tracked this down at some point) recalls that it was Daniele Amati who originally said this.
This is recorded at string theory FAQ – How does string theory involve homotopy theory, higher geometry and higher category theory?.
As that headline suggests, one may argue – easily argue now, given the cobordism theorem – that it is not a coincidence that people want to say this either for “string theory” or “higher category theory”. Independently of what string theory is as a fundamental theory of nature, the fact that physicists started investigating higher dimensional fundamental objects led them to a “new kind of mathematics” (Kontsevich is maybe often forgotten here to highlight as a lone fore-runner) which would only be fully available in the 21st century indeed, namely higher category theory, in much the same way as in previous centuries developments in physics called for what we now regard as established 20th century mathematics.
Hmm, ok. Thanks both.
1 to 4 of 4