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.
Kan extensions are unique up to unique isomorphism
Statement
Let and be functors.
If and are left Kan extensions of along , then there is a unique natural isomorphism such that
If and are right Kan extensions of along , then there is a unique natural isomorphism such that
So both left and right Kan extensions are unique up to unique compatible isomorphism.
Facts & Assumptions
Given: Functors and ; left Kan extensions and of along ; and right Kan extensions and of along .
A left Kan extension of along is initial among pairs with , and a right Kan extension is terminal among pairs with (Left and right Kan extensions).
Proof
Since is a left Kan extension and is another such pair, [L1] gives a unique natural transformation with ; similarly [L1] gives a unique natural transformation with .
By step 1.1, , while trivially. So the uniqueness clause of [L1] forces ; likewise . Hence is a natural isomorphism, and its compatibility with was built in at step 1.1.
The same argument with the terminal clause of [L1] gives unique and satisfying and , and uniqueness forces and . So right Kan extensions are unique up to unique compatible isomorphism as well.
Depends on
Used by
Nothing in the library uses this result yet.
Dependency tree · two levels
4 results within two dependency steps of this one, each drawn at its shortest distance from it. An arrow runs from a result to what uses it, so the chart reads left to right and ends at this result, which carries a heavier outline. Every node is a link to that result. Click elsewhere on the chart to enlarge it.
Sources
- E. Riehl, Category Theory in Context, 2nd ed., Exercise 6.1(ii) (standard reference, not scraped)
- B. Richter, From Categories to Homotopy Theory, §§4.1-4.2 (standard reference, not scraped)