Post #2346186
2026-04-26 21:27 UTC
@sjb@mstdn.io Exactly right. But I think there's an interesting story here which is that when we write down something like 3x+5 that expression is itself a free construction and in a sense that's closer to what I'm talking about than the x itself.
Replies (1)
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@dpiponi@mathstodon.xyz 2026-04-26 21:30
@sjb@mstdn.io Thinking aloud here: I think what I'm saying is we write things like 3x+2 all the time. But when learning about free groups we actually "reified" those kinds of expressions for the first time.