Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Mathematics/2023 July 26

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July 26

Partitions and Category theory

What are partitions of positive integers in terms of category theory?Rich (talk) 05:25, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Is there a background to the question? There are many categories in which partitions can be modeled as objects, but nothing comes to mind in which this leads to a categorically interesting characterization. I think of category theory as a tool to deal in generic ways with structure-preserving maps. What might be a relevant structure here, and what might be mapped to what?  --Lambiam 07:35, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

You have a lot of crust in replying to my question Lambian. You make smart ass replies to me, refused to own your error that you claimed i made, said a subject I was interested in was pointless. I don't want any "help" from a perlike you.Rich (talk) 15:35, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

"Have a lot of crust" is a fun expression I haven't heard before (and a web search turns up only results about rheum and pizza). Anyway, it seems like a reasonable request: The more context you provide for a question (to a point), the easier it is for respondents to figure out what you are looking for in an answer, even respondents who are not themselves experts. Beyond the wiki page about partitions, did you try a search in a citation index? A google scholar search turns up https://books.google.com/books?id=ufFA3TrB4KsC&pg=PA111 as one of the first few results which lists a number of other references. There's some material about partitions in https://arxiv.org/pdf/1803.05316.pdf –jacobolus (t) 16:36, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

There are two commonly used mathematical meanings of the word "partition", integer partition and set partition. So I think asking for some background and context to the question is reasonable and doesn't require any "crust" at all. --RDBury (talk) 20:31, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Rich, your question needs clarification and additional context for people to be able to helpfully answer it, and I don't see the "tone" you have read into Lambiam's reasonable request to do so. Honestly, you seem to have misread a simple request for clarification and attacked them out of nowhere. There's nothing in their request for clarification that indicates any kind of condescension or "smart ass". --Jayron32 12:59, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

The questioner's beef with me derives from our interaction in Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 May 29 § Could Habiru have traveled by ship?.  --Lambiam 23:10, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

They could also investigate if the Fir Bolg really were escaped slaves who worked in mines in Greece. Or not. But the reference desk isn't really for speculation! ;-) NadVolum (talk) 12:40, 2 August 2023 (UTC)