[Haskell-cafe] a new Monad

[Cale Gibbard]

On 17/09/05, Bulat Ziganshin <bulatz at hotpop.com> wrote:
> Hello Malcolm,
> 
> Friday, September 16, 2005, 11:32:02 PM, you wrote:
> 
> MW> What a strange choice of name for a language...!  :-)
> 
> really, a word Monad derived by mathemathics from philosophy and
> esoteric
> 
> 
> --
> Best regards,
>  Bulat                            mailto:bulatz at HotPOP.com

Recent mathematics apparently didn't take it from philosophy, that was
supposedly more of a coincidence. Before the term was adopted, the
triples <T,eta,mu> were variously referred to as "dual standard
construction", "triple", "monoid", and "triad". The frequent use of
the term "triple" was getting confusing for somewhat obvious reasons,
so a portmanteau of "monoid" and "triad" was formed to get "monad".
The philosophical use derives more directly from the greek word
"monas" (unity), and is much older, having been found in Hellenistic
Greek sources in reference to the doctrine of Pythagoras and other
ancient philosophers.

  - Cale