An Invitation to General Algebra and Universal Constructions

George M. Bergman

pub. Henry Helson, 15 the Crescent, Berkeley CA, 94708
1998, 398 pp., $45, ISBN 0-9655211-4-1.

(An earlier edition appeared as Berkeley Mathematics Lecture Notes, #7.)

Berkeley comments: Copies may be purchased at $5 discount from my office.
There are also two copies in the library, 100 Evans Hall, call number QA251 .B47 1998.

Note on the PostScript files below: When a chapter begins on an even-numbered
page, the file below begins with a blank page, for convenience in 2-sided printing.
So if you display a file and see a blank page, just page forward to see the text.

Contents; Chapter 0, About the course, and these notes; Chapter 1, Making some things precise.

Chapter 2, Free groups

Chapter 3, A Cook's tour of other universal constructions

Chapter 4, Ordered sets, induction, and the Axiom of Choice

Chapter 5, Lattices, closure operators, and Galois connections

Chapter 6, Categories and functors
Rotated diagram to go on p.152.

Chapter 7, Universal constructions in category-theoretic terms

Chapter 8, Varieties of algebras

Chapter 9, Algebra and coalgebra objects in categories, and functors having adjoints

References. Word Index. Symbol Index. Index of Exercises.

Errata