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ExampleConstruction: AI-generatedVerification: AI-generatedprecheck passaudited 2026-09-01
How statement and proof provenance work

The first chip identifies the source of the statement or construction; the second identifies the source of its local proof or verification.

  • Literature-sourced: the exact statement appears in a cited source; only wording and notation differ.
  • AI-adapted: a semantically identical restatement of literature-sourced material, modulo indexing, notation, and boundary cases adopted by the library.
  • AI-generated: a genuinely novel statement formulated by AI, with no source for the claim itself.

These labels describe origin, not correctness: citations and verification chips remain separate evidence.

The subobject classifier in a presheaf category on the walking arrow

Example

Let I be the walking-arrow category 0→u1, and work in the presheaf category SetIop. The subobject classifier Ω sends an object to its set of sieves:

  • Ω(0)={∅,{10}},
  • Ω(1)={∅,{u},{u,11}}.

The truth morphism true⁡:1→Ω selects the maximal sieve at each object. For any presheaf P and subpresheaf S⊆P, its characteristic morphism is χS,c(x)={f:d→c:P(f)(x)∈S(d)}.

Facts & Assumptions

Given: The walking-arrow category I, the sieve presheaf Ω, and the subpresheaf S⊂y(1) defined below.

[L1]

A subobject classifier classifies subobjects by pullback of truth (Subobject classifier).

Verification

technique · direct
1.1givenconstructalgebra

On the walking arrow, the arrows into 0 are only 10, so its sieves are ∅ and {10}. The arrows into 1 are u and 11, and downward closure forces any sieve containing 11 also to contain u, giving exactly the three displayed sieves on 1. Pullback of sieves makes Ω a presheaf, and the maximal sieves define the natural truth morphism above.

2.1step 1.1givenconstruct

Consider the representable presheaf y(1) (The Yoneda assignment and the small-source Yoneda functor, traditionally called the Yoneda embedding) and the subpresheaf S⊂y(1) defined by S(1)=∅ and S(0)={u}. Its characteristic map χ:y(1)→Ω sends the unique element u∈y(1)(0) to the maximal sieve {10}, and sends 11∈y(1)(1) to the sieve {u}.

2.2step 1.1L1constructalgebra

For a general subpresheaf T⊆P, the displayed formula defines a sieve and is natural under restriction. Moreover χT,c(x) is maximal exactly when x∈T(c): the forward implication tests 1c, and the reverse follows from closure of the subpresheaf under restriction. Thus pulling back true⁡ along χT recovers T, and this condition uniquely determines χT. By [L1], Ω is a subobject classifier.

3.1step 2.1step 2.2algebra∎

For the concrete S⊂y(1) of step 2.1, that pullback includes u at object 0 because χ0(u)={10} is maximal, and excludes 11 at object 1 because χ1(11)={u} is not maximal. Hence the general classifier calculation gives exactly the displayed example.

Depends on

Used by

Nothing in the library uses this result yet.

Dependency tree · two levels

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