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For example, the initial object in any concrete category with free objects will be the free object generated by the empty set (since the free functor, being left adjoint to the forgetful functor to Set, preserves colimits). Initial and terminal objects may also be characterized in terms of universal properties and adjoint functors.
Let C be a category with finite products and a terminal object 1. A list object over an object A of C is: an object L A, a morphism o A : 1 → L A, and; a morphism s A : A × L A → L A; such that for any object B of C with maps b : 1 → B and t : A × B → B, there exists a unique f : L A → B such that the following diagram commutes:
Examples of limits and colimits in Ring include: The ring of integers Z is an initial object in Ring. The zero ring is a terminal object in Ring. The product in Ring is given by the direct product of rings. This is just the cartesian product of the underlying sets with addition and multiplication defined component-wise.
Universal constructions are functorial in nature: if one can carry out the construction for every object in a category C then one obtains a functor on C. Furthermore, this functor is a right or left adjoint to the functor U used in the definition of the universal property. [2] Universal properties occur everywhere in mathematics.
Note that because a nullary biproduct will be both terminal (a nullary product) and initial (a nullary coproduct), it will in fact be a zero object. Indeed, the term "zero object" originated in the study of preadditive categories like Ab , where the zero object is the zero group .
The empty set serves as the initial object in Set with empty functions as morphisms. Every singleton is a terminal object, with the functions mapping all elements of the source sets to the single target element as morphisms. There are thus no zero objects in Set. The category Set is complete and co-complete.
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In the mathematical discipline of category theory, a strict initial object is an initial object 0 of a category C with the property that every morphism in C with codomain 0 is an isomorphism. In a Cartesian closed category, every initial object is strict. [1] Also, if C is a distributive or extensive category, then the initial object 0 of C is ...