Ebook: Sketches of an Elephant: A Topos Theory Compendium

Citing the old Indian story about the blind men feeling different parts of an elephant and coming up with divergent descriptions of the animal Johnstone (mathematics, U. of Cambridge, UK) says that topos theory can be described in divergent ways depending on what part is examined. The original conception of toposes arose in the 1960s as a "generalized space" supporting cohomology theory, but has grown to be used by category theory and other branches of mathematics. Addressing those already familiar with topos theory, Johnstone offers these volumes (and a scheduled 3rd) as a complete treatment of all of the pieces of elementary topos theory together with fully worked-out results. Volume one discusses toposes as categories. Toposes as spaces and theories are reserved for the second. The final volume expected to discuss homotopy and cohomology, and toposes as mathematical universes.