Betweenness relations in a categorical setting (Q2407007): Difference between revisions

This is a category-theoretic look at certain betweenness relations, called R-relations, which satisfy the following four axioms: \([a,b,b]\), \([a,b,c]\Rightarrow [c,b,a]\), \([a,b,a]\Rightarrow a=b\), and \([a, b, c]\wedge [a, d, c]\wedge [b, x, d]\Rightarrow [a,x,c]\). With morphisms as betweenness-presevring functions, the class of all R-relations form a category \({\mathbf R}\). By showing that the class of finite R-structures has both the Joint Embedding Property and the Amalgamation Property, the authors conclude that the class of finite R-structures is a Fraïssé class. An R-relation is said to be antisymmetric if it satisfies \([a, b, c]\wedge [a, c, b]\Rightarrow b=c\). With \({\mathbf A}\) denoting the full subcategory of \({\mathbf R}\) whose objects are antisymmetric R- relations, it is shown that \({\mathbf A}\) is a reflective, but not coreflective, subcategory of \({\mathbf R}\). Some connections between certain R-relations and complete lattices, as well as a remark on the Dedekind-MacNeille completion round out this paper.