Uploaded September 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
Math Encounters:
"Category Theory: The Mad Libs of Mathematics"
featuring Tai-Danae Bradley Wednesday, August 13
Mad Libs is a fun word game played by filling in the blanks of a story with different words — nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and more. Different word choices give different stories, but each has the same structure underneath. In some ways, category theory — a modern branch of mathematics — is like a Mad Libs template for mathematics. It provides a framework that captures structure shared by many ideas across the mathematical world and even beyond. In this talk, mathematician Tai-Danae Bradley offers a friendly introduction to category theory, how it connects different parts of math, and why it's popping up in the world of large language models like ChatGPT. Along the way, we’ll explore how thinking abstractly can help us see both math and language in a whole new light.
Special introduction by Gary Gordon, Professor Emeritus, Lafayette College.
Math Encounters is MoMath’s popular free public presentation series celebrating the spectacular world of mathematics. This program is funded by Simons Foundation International and administered by the Simons Foundation’s Science, Society & Culture division.
Math Encounters:
"Category Theory: The Mad Libs of Mathematics"
featuring Tai-Danae Bradley Wednesday, August 13
Mad Libs is a fun word game played by filling in the blanks of a story with different words — nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and more. Different word choices give different stories, but each has the same structure underneath. In some ways, category theory — a modern branch of mathematics — is like a Mad Libs template for mathematics. It provides a framework that captures structure shared by many ideas across the mathematical world and even beyond. In this talk, mathematician Tai-Danae Bradley offers a friendly introduction to category theory, how it connects different parts of math, and why it's popping up in the world of large language models like ChatGPT. Along the way, we’ll explore how thinking abstractly can help us see both math and language in a whole new light.
Special introduction by Gary Gordon, Professor Emeritus, Lafayette College.
Math Encounters is MoMath’s popular free public presentation series celebrating the spectacular world of mathematics. This program is funded by Simons Foundation International and administered by the Simons Foundation’s Science, Society & Culture division.
