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From: rim@csadfa.cs.adfa.oz.au (Bob McKay)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.prolog
Subject: Re: origin of "arity"
Message-ID: <1991Jun24.010140.5018@sserve.cc.adfa.oz.au>
Date: 24 Jun 91 01:01:40 GMT
References: <1991Jun21.200810.1@csc.anu.edu.au>
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From article <1991Jun21.200810.1@csc.anu.edu.au>, by ada612@csc.anu.edu.au:
> Philologically, I guess the next step would be finding the first
> attestation [ of arity].  The date to beat seems to be 1979 (Boyer and Moore),
> from ROK's posting.
Mac Lane, S 'Categories for the Working Mathematician',Springer,NY,1971,P120:
"....called the arity of omega." My own impression is that it's a much earlier
term in universal algebra/category theory. Mac Lane is just the oldest text I
have that happens to record it in the index.
Bob McKay		   Phone:	+61 6 268 8169	    fax: +61 6 268 8581
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