Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2002 iii Paper 20 12 ii Solution 2026-10-14
For the Category of sets, take the monoidal tensor product to be the Cartesian product, , with unit a singleton . On morphisms use . Define the associator by and the unitors by and . These are natural isomorphisms, with inverses obtained by rebracketing or adjoining . Both paths in the pentagon send to , and both paths in the triangle send to . This proves the axioms elementwise.
There is a second structure: use disjoint union and unit . Define the associator by preserving each element and its summand while changing the nested tags, and define the unitors by removing the empty summand. These are natural and invertible. In the pentagon, either path takes an element in any of the four summands to that same element in the same summand of ; the triangle removes an empty intermediate summand on either path. Thus both axioms hold.
These product and coproduct monoidal structures on sets have different units, and , which are not isomorphic. They are even inequivalent as monoidal categories: an equivalence of the underlying Category of sets preserves terminal objects, so it cannot take the singleton unit of the product structure to the empty unit of the coproduct structure. Hence the monoidal structure on sets is not unique.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2003 iii Paper 18 10 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
The Category of sets is monoidal under Cartesian product, with any singleton as unit. The tensor of maps is , the associator sends to , and the left and right unitors discard the singleton coordinate. These are natural bijections. Both pentagon paths send a nested quadruple to the same rebracketed quadruple, and both triangle paths discard the same singleton coordinate, verifying the axioms directly.
This is not the only structure. Disjoint union is another tensor bifunctor, with empty-set unit. Its associator changes parentheses while retaining the tag indicating the original summand, and its unitors remove an empty summand. Every coherence path preserves both the original tag and the element, so again the pentagon and triangle hold.
These product and coproduct monoidal structures on sets are distinct even up to monoidal equivalence. Any equivalence of the underlying category preserves initial and terminal objects up to isomorphism. It therefore cannot carry the empty-set unit of the coproduct structure to the singleton unit of the product structure. Hence Set has at least these two inequivalent monoidal structures.