Elmo Vuorenmaa: How to make sense of abstract nonsense

The purpose of this talk is to provide an introduction to categorical thinking for people who are not accustomed to category theory. We will examine the most fundamental concepts in category theory, categories, functors, and natural transformations, with a focus on developing intuition through pictures and examples. The talk assumes no background in category theory, and the examples require only a basic understanding of algebra and topology. Those already familiar with categories will hopefully enjoy some of the more unexpected examples of functoriality.