Conceptual Mathematics: A First Introduction to Categories

In the last fifty years, the use of the notion of 'category' has led to a remarkable unification and simplification of mathematics. Written by two of the best known participants in this development, Conceptual Mathematics is the first book to serve as a skeleton key to mathematics for the general reader or beginning student and as an introduction to categories for computer scientists, logicians, physicists, linguists etc. While the ideas and techniques of basic category theory are useful throughout modern mathematics, this book does not presuppose knowledge of specific fields but rather develops elementary categories such as directed graphs and discrete dynamical systems from the beginning. The fundamental ideas are then illuminated in an engaging way by examples in these categories.