A categorical approach to largest and smallest connectednesses and disconnectednesses (Q798413)

The author gives a necessary and sufficient condition in terms of regular and coregular classes of objects in a category for the existence of a largest and smallest proper radical and semisimple class (or connectedness and disconnectedness) which explains why such classes do not exist in the categories of associative and alternative rings and groups, while such classes do exist in the categories of topological spaces and graphs. In the latter two categories the properties of two element spaces and graphs play a decisive role: there exist a simply indiscrete object (i.e. a simple object such that every nontrivial object can be mapped onto it and every morphism from that object into a simple object is either constant or an isomorphism) and a simply discrete object (which is defined dually). Also the existence of hereditary connectednesses and cohereditary disconnectednesses is discussed.