Concept
Category of groups
Related concepts (35)
Coproduct
In , the coproduct, or categorical sum, is a construction which includes as examples the disjoint union of sets and of topological spaces, the free product of groups, and the direct sum of modules and vector spaces. The coproduct of a family of objects is essentially the "least specific" object to which each object in the family admits a morphism. It is the category-theoretic to the , which means the definition is the same as the product but with all arrows reversed.
Subcategory
In mathematics, specifically , a subcategory of a C is a category S whose are objects in C and whose morphisms are morphisms in C with the same identities and composition of morphisms. Intuitively, a subcategory of C is a category obtained from C by "removing" some of its objects and arrows. Let C be a category. A subcategory S of C is given by a subcollection of objects of C, denoted ob(S), a subcollection of morphisms of C, denoted hom(S).
Regular category
In , a regular category is a category with and coequalizers of a pair of morphisms called kernel pairs, satisfying certain exactness conditions. In that way, regular categories recapture many properties of abelian categories, like the existence of images, without requiring additivity. At the same time, regular categories provide a foundation for the study of a fragment of first-order logic, known as regular logic. A category C is called regular if it satisfies the following three properties: C is .
Free object
In mathematics, the idea of a free object is one of the basic concepts of abstract algebra. Informally, a free object over a set A can be thought of as being a "generic" algebraic structure over A: the only equations that hold between elements of the free object are those that follow from the defining axioms of the algebraic structure. Examples include free groups, tensor algebras, or free lattices. The concept is a part of universal algebra, in the sense that it relates to all types of algebraic structure (with finitary operations).
Free group
In mathematics, the free group FS over a given set S consists of all words that can be built from members of S, considering two words to be different unless their equality follows from the group axioms (e.g. st = suu−1t, but s ≠ t−1 for s,t,u ∈ S). The members of S are called generators of FS, and the number of generators is the rank of the free group. An arbitrary group G is called free if it is isomorphic to FS for some subset S of G, that is, if there is a subset S of G such that every element of G can be written in exactly one way as a product of finitely many elements of S and their inverses (disregarding trivial variations such as st = suu−1t).
Coequalizer
In , a coequalizer (or coequaliser) is a generalization of a quotient by an equivalence relation to objects in an arbitrary . It is the categorical construction to the equalizer. A coequalizer is a colimit of the diagram consisting of two objects X and Y and two parallel morphisms f, g : X → Y. More explicitly, a coequalizer of the parallel morphisms f and g can be defined as an object Q together with a morphism q : Y → Q such that q ∘ f = q ∘ g.
Exact sequence
An exact sequence is a sequence of morphisms between objects (for example, groups, rings, modules, and, more generally, objects of an ) such that the of one morphism equals the kernel of the next. In the context of group theory, a sequence of groups and group homomorphisms is said to be exact at if . The sequence is called exact if it is exact at each for all , i.e., if the image of each homomorphism is equal to the kernel of the next. The sequence of groups and homomorphisms may be either finite or infinite.
Snake lemma
The snake lemma is a tool used in mathematics, particularly homological algebra, to construct long exact sequences. The snake lemma is valid in every and is a crucial tool in homological algebra and its applications, for instance in algebraic topology. Homomorphisms constructed with its help are generally called connecting homomorphisms. In an (such as the category of abelian groups or the category of vector spaces over a given field), consider a commutative diagram: where the rows are exact sequences and 0 is the zero object.
Grothendieck group
In mathematics, the Grothendieck group, or group of differences, of a commutative monoid M is a certain abelian group. This abelian group is constructed from M in the most universal way, in the sense that any abelian group containing a homomorphic of M will also contain a homomorphic image of the Grothendieck group of M. The Grothendieck group construction takes its name from a specific case in , introduced by Alexander Grothendieck in his proof of the Grothendieck–Riemann–Roch theorem, which resulted in the development of K-theory.
Universal property
In mathematics, more specifically in , a universal property is a property that characterizes up to an isomorphism the result of some constructions. Thus, universal properties can be used for defining some objects independently from the method chosen for constructing them. For example, the definitions of the integers from the natural numbers, of the rational numbers from the integers, of the real numbers from the rational numbers, and of polynomial rings from the field of their coefficients can all be done in terms of universal properties.