## Idempotents by sketches and forms

This post provides a detailed description of an example of a mathematical structure presented as a sketch and as a form.  It is a supplement to my article An Introduction to forms.  Most of the constructions I mention here are given in more detail in that article.

It helps in reading this post to be familiar with the basic ideas of category, including commutative diagram and limit cone, and of the concepts of logical theory and model in logic.

### Sketches and forms

sketch of a mathematical structure is a collection of objects and arrows that make up a digraph (directed graph), together with some specified cones, cocones and diagrams in the digraph.  A model of the sketch is a digraph morphism from the digraph to some category that takes the cones to limit cones, the cocones to colimit cocones, and the diagrams to commutative diagrams.  A morphism of models of a sketch from one model to another in the same category is a natural transformation.  Sketches can be used to define all kinds of algebraic structures in the sense of universal algebra, and many other types of structures (including many types of categories).

There are many structures that sketches cannot sketch.  Forms were first defined in [4].  They can define anything a sketch can define and lots of other things.  [5] gives a leisurely description of forms suitable for people who have a little bit of knowledge of categories and [1] gives a more thorough description.

An idempotent is a very simple kind of algebraic structure.  Here I will describe both a sketch and a form for idempotents. In another post I will do the same for binops (magmas).

### Idempotent

An idempotent is a unary operation $u$ for which $u^2=u$.

• If $u$ is a morphism in a category whose morphisms are set functions, a function $u:S\to S$ is an idempotent if $u(u(x))=u(x)$ for all $x$ in the domain.
• Any identity element in any category is an idempotent.
• A nontrivial example is the function $u(x,y):=(-x,0)$ on the real plane.

Any idempotent $u$ makes the following diagram commute

and that diagram can be taken as the definition of idempotent in any category.

The diagram is in green.  In this post (and in [5]) diagrams in the category of models of a sketch or a form are shown in green.

### A sketch for idempotents

The sketch for idempotents contains a digraph with one object and one arrow from that object to itself (above left) and one diagram (above right).  It has no cones or cocones.  So this is an almost trivial example.  When being expository (well, I can hardly say "when you are exposing") your first example should not be trivial, but it should be easy.  Let's call the sketch $\mathcal{S}$.

• The diagram looks the same as the green diagram above.  It is in black, because I am showing things in syntax (things in sketches and forms) in black and semantics (things in categories of models) in green.
• The green diagram is a commutative diagram in some category (unspecified).
• The black diagram is a diagram in a digraph. It doesn't make sense to say it is commutative because digraphs don't have composition of arrows.
• Each sketch has a specific digraph and lists of specific diagrams, cones and cocones.  The left digraph above is not in the list of diagrams of $\mathcal{S}$ (see below).

The definition of sketch says that every diagram in the official list of diagrams of a given sketch must become a commutative diagram in a model.  This use of the word "become" means in this case that a model must be a digraph morphism $M:\mathcal{S}\to\mathcal{C}$ for some category $\mathcal{C}$ for which the diagram below commutes.

This sketch generates a category called the Theory ("Cattheory" in [5]) of the sketch $\mathcal{S}$, denoted by $\text{Th}(\mathcal{S})$.  It is roughly the "smallest" category containing $f$ and $C$ for which the diagrams in $\mathcal{S}$ are commutative.

This theory contains the generic model $G:\mathcal{S}\to \text{Th}(\mathcal{S})$ that takes $f$ and $C$ to themselves.
• $G$ is "generic" because anything you prove about $G$ is true of every model of $\mathcal{S}$ in any category.
• In particular, in the category $\text{Th}(\mathcal{S})$, $G(f)\circ G(f)=G(f)$.
• $G$ is a universal morphism in the sense of category theory: It lifts any model $M:\mathcal{S}\to\mathcal{C}$ to a unique functor $\bar{M}=M\circ G:\text{Th}(\mathcal{S})\to\mathcal{C}$ which can therefore be regarded as the same model.  See Note [2].
SInce models are functors, morphisms between models are natural transformations.  This gives what you would normally call homomorphisms for models of almost any sketchable structure.  In [2] you can find a sketch for groups, and indeed the natural transformations between models are group homomorphisms.

### Sketching categories

You can sketch categories with a sketch CatSk containing diagrams and cones, but no cocones.  This is done in detail in [3]. The resulting theory $\text{Th}(\mathbf{CatSk})$ is required to be the least category-with-finite-limits generated by $\mathcal{S}$ with the diagrams becoming commutative diagrams and the cones becoming limit cones.  This theory is the FL-Theory for categories, which I will call ThCat (suppressing mention of FL).

### Doctrines

In general the theory of a particular kind of structure contains a parameter that denotes its doctrine. The sketch $\mathcal{S}$ for idempotents didn't require cones, but you can construct theories $\text{Th}(\mathcal{S})$, $\text{Th} (\text{FP},\mathcal{S})$ and $\text{Th}(\text{FL},\mathcal{S})$ for idempotents (FP means it is a category with finite products).

In a strong sense, all these theories have the same models, namely idempotents, but the doctrine of the theory allows you to use more mechanisms for proving properties of idempotents.  (The doctrine for $\text{Th}(\mathcal{S})$ provides for equational proofs for unary operations only, a doctrine which has no common name such as FP or FS.)  The paper [1] is devoted to explicating proof in the context of forms, using graphs and diagrams instead of formulas that are strings of symbols.

### Describing composable pairs of arrows

The form for any type of structure is constructed using the FL theory for some type of category, for example category with all limits, cartesian closed category, topos, and so on.  The form for idempotents can be constructed in ThCat (no extra structure needed).  The form for reflexive function spaces (for example) needs the FL theory for cartesian closed categories (see [5]).

Such an FL theory must contain objects $\text{ob}$ and $\text{ar}$ that become the set of objects and the set of arrows of the category that a model produces.  (Since FL theories have models in any category with finite limits, I could have said "object of objects" and "object of arrows".  But in this post I will talk about only models in Set.)

ThCat contains an object  $\text{ar}_2$ that represents composable pairs of arrows.  That requires a cone to define it:

This must become a limit cone in a model.

• I usually show cones in blue.
• $\text{dom}$ and $\text{cod}$ give (in a model) the domain and codomain of an arrow.
• $\text{lfac}$ gives the left factor and $\text{rfac}$ gives the right factor. It is usually useful to give suggestive names to some of the projections in situations like this, since they will be used elsewhere (where they will be black!).
• The objects and arrows in the diagram (including $\text{ar}_2$) are already members of the FL theory for categories.
• This diagram is annotated in green with sample names of objects and arrows that might exist in a model.  Atish and I introduced that annotation system in [1] to help you chase the diagram and think about what it means.

This cone is a graph-based description of the object of composable arrows in a category (as opposed to a linguistic or string-based description).

### Describing endomorphisms

Now an idempotent must be an endomorphism, so we provide a cone describing the object of endomorphisms in a category. This cone already exists in the FL theory for categories.

• $\text{loop}$ is a monomorphism (in fact a regular mono because it is the mono produced by an equalizer) so it is not unreasonable to give the element annotation for $\text{endo}$ and $\text{ar}$ the same name.
• "$\text{dc}$" takes $f$ to its domain and codomain.
• $\text{loop}$ and "$\text{dc}$" were not created when I produced the cone above.  They were already in the FL theory for categories.

Since the cone defining $\text{ar}_2$ is a limit cone (in the Theory, not in a model), if you have any other commutative cone (purple) to that cone, a unique arrow (red) $\text{diag}$ automatically is present as shown below:

This particular purple cone is the limit cone defining $\text{endo}$ just defined.  Now $\text{diag}$ is a specific arrow in the FL theory for categories. In a model of the theory (which is a category in Set or in some other category) takes an endomorphism to the corresponding pair of composable arrows.

### The object of idempotents

Now using these arrows we can define the object $\text{idm}$ of idempotents using the diagram below. See Note [3].

Idm is an object in ThCat.  In any category, in other words in any model of ThCat, idm becomes the set of idempotent arrows in that category.

In the terminology of [5], the object idm is the form for idempotents, and the cone it is the limit of is the description of idempotent.

Now take ThCat and adjoin an arrow $g:1\to\text{idm}$.  You get a new FL category I will call the FL-theory of the form for idempotents.  A model of the theory of the form in Set  is a category with a specified idempotent. A particular example of a model of the form idm in the category of real linear vector spaces is the map $u(x,y):=(-x,0)$ of the (set of points of) the real plane to itself (it is an idempotent endomorphism of $\textbf{R}^2$).

This example is typical of forms and their models, except in one way:  Idempotents are also sketchable, as I described above.  Many mathematical structures can be perceived as models of forms, but not models of sketches, such as reflexive function spaces as in [5].

### Notes

[1] The diagrams shown in this post were drawn in Mathematica.  The code for them is shown in the notebook SketchFormExamples.nb .  I am in the early stages of developing a package for drawing categorical diagrams in Mathematica, so this notebook shows the diagrams defined in very primitive machine-code-like Mathematica.  The package will not rival xypic for TeX any time soon.  I am doing it so I can produce diagrams (including 3D diagrams) you can manipulate.

[2] In practice I would refer to the names of the objects and arrows in the sketch rather than using the M notation:  I might write $f\circ f=f$ instead of $M(f)\circ M(f)=M(f)$ for example.  Of course this confuses syntax with semantics, which sounds like a Grievous Sin, but it is similar to what we do all the time in writing math:  "In a semigroup, $x$ is an idempotent if $xx=x$."  We use same notation for the binary operation for any semigroup and we use $x$ as an arbitrary element of most anything.  Actually, if I write $f\circ f=f$ I can claim I am talking in the generic model, since any statement true in the generic model is true in any model.  So there.

[3] In the Mathematica notebook SketchFormExamples.nb in which I drew these diagrams, this diagram is plotted in Euclidean 3-space and can be viewed from different viewpoints by running your cursor over it.

### References

[1] Atish Bagchi and Charles Wells, Graph-Base Logic and Sketches, draft, September 2008, on ArXiv.

[2] Michael Barr and Charles Wells, Category Theory for Computing Science (1999). Les Publications CRM, Montreal (publication PM023).

[3] Michael Barr and Charles Wells, Toposes, Triples and Theories (2005). Reprints in Theory and Applications of Categories 1.

[4] Charles Wells, A generalization of the concept of sketch, Theoretical Computer Science 70, 1990

[5] Charles Wells, An Introduction to forms.

## An Introduction to Forms

In 2009, I wrote a sequence of posts on this blog explaining the concept of form that I introduced in [1].  I have now updated and combined them into an article [2].  The posts no longer exist on the blog. The article contains links to other papers on forms.

[1] A generalization of the concept of sketch, Theoretical Computer Science 70, 1990.

## Turning definitions into mathematical objects

When G&G was moved to this current location, most of the links were trashed, so I have been repairing them a bit at a time. There are still some broken links from 2009 and before but I am working on them.  Honest.

G&G contained a series of posts about turning definitions into mathematical objects, mostly written in 2009. Not only were their links broken (and they used many links to each other), but two of the articles were trashed.  I have now removed them from this website. They are all still at the old website: http://sixwingedseraph.wordpress.com/ and as far as I know all the links to each other work.

When I have time I will combine them into one long article.  Until then, the old website will remain.

## Showing categorical diagrams in 3D

In Graph-Based Logic and Sketches, Atish Bagchi and I needed to construct a lot of cones based on fairly complicated diagrams. We generally show the base diagram and left the reader to imagine the cone. This post is an experiment in presenting such a diagram in 3D, with its cone and other constructions based on it.

To understand this post, you need a basic understanding of categories, functors and limit cones (see References).

To manipulate the diagram below, you must have Wolfram CDF Player installed on your computer. It is available free from their website.  Note that you can also drag the diagram around in three dimensions to see it from different perspectives.  (Of course it isn’t really in three dimensions.   Your eyes-to-brain module reconstructs the illusion of three dimensions when you twirl the diagram around.)

The notebook and CDF files that generate this display may be downloaded from here:

These files may be used and modified as you wish according to the Creative Commons rule listed under “Permissions” (at the top of the window).

### The sketch for categories: composition

A finite-limit sketch (FL sketch) is a category with finite limits given by specifying certain  nodes and arrows, commutative diagrams using these nodes and arrows, and limit cones based on diagrams using the given nodes and arrows.  A model of an FL sketch is a finite-limit-preserving functor from the FL sketch into some category $latex \mathcal{C}$.  Detailed descriptions of FL-sketches are  in References [1], [2] and [3] (below).

Categories themselves may be sketched by FL-sketches. Here I will present the part of the sketch that constructs (in a model) the object of composites of two arrows.  This is the specification for composite:

1. The composite of two arrows $latex f:A\to B$ and $latex g:B’\to C$ is defined if and only if $latex B=B’$.
2. The composite is denoted by $latex gf$.
3. The domain of $latex gf$ is $latex A$ and the codomain is $latex C$.

We start with a diagram in the FL sketch for categories that gives the data corresponding to two arrows that may be composed.  This diagram involves nodes ob and ar, which in a model become the object of objects and the object of arrows of the category object in $latex \mathcal{C}$.  (Suppose $latex \mathcal{C}$ is the category of sets; then the model is simply a small category.  The node ob goes to the set of objects of the small category and ar goes to the set of arrows.)  The arrows labeled dom and cod take (in a model) an arrow to its domain and codomain respectively. Here is the diagram:

Note that this is a diagram, not a directed graph (digraph). (In the paper, Atish and I, like most category theorists, say “graph” instead of “digraph”.) It has an underlying digraph (see Chapter 2 of Graph-Based Logic and Sketches), but the labeling of several different nodes of the underlying digraph by the name of the same node of the sketch is meaningful.

Here, the key fact is that in the diagram there are two arrows, one labeled dom and the other cod, to the same node labeled ob, and two other arrows to two different nodes labeled ob.

Now click c1.

This shows a cone over the diagram.  One of the nodes in the sketch must be cp (in other words given beforehand; that is, we are specifying not only that the blue stuff is a limit cone but that the limit is the node cp.)   In a model, this cone must become a limit cone.  It follows from the properties of limits that the elements of cp in the model in Sets are pairs of arrows with the property that one has a codomain that is the same as the domain of the other.  The label “cp” stands for “compatible pairs”.

Now click c2.

The green stuff is a diagram showing two arrows from the node labeled ar to the left and right nodes labeled ob in the original black diagram.  This is not a cone; it is just a diagram.  In a model, any arrow in the vertex must have domain the same as the domain of one of the arrows in the compatible pair, and codomain the same as the codomain of the other arrow of the pair.  Thus in the model, an arrow living in the set labeled with “ar” in green must satisfy requirement 3 in the specification for composition given above.

Note that the requirement that the green diagram be commutative in a model is vacuous, so it doesn’t matter whether we specify it specifically as a diagram in the sketch or not.

Now click c3.

The arrow labeled comp must be specified as an arrow in the sketch.  We want its value to be the composite of an element of cp in a model, in other words a compatible pair of arrows.  At this point that will not necessarily be true.  But all can be saved:

Now click c4.

We must specify that the diagram given by the thick arrows must be a diagram of the sketch.  The fact that it must become commutative in a model means exactly that the red arrow comp from cp to ar takes a compatible pair to an arrow that satisfies requirements 1–3 of the specification of composite shown above.

### References

1. Peter T. Johnstone, Sketches of an Elephant: A Topos Theory Compendium, Volume 2 (Oxford Logic Guides 44), by Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0198524960.
2. Michael Barr and Charles Wells, Category theory for computing science (1999).  Les Publications CRM, Montreal (publication PM023).  (This is the easiest to start with but it doesn’t get very far.)
3. Michael Barr and Charles Wells, Toposes, Triples and Theories (2005).  Reprints in Theory and Applications of Categories 1.

$latex \mathcal{C}$

## Function as map

This is a first draft of an article to eventually appear in abstractmath.

### Images and metaphors

To explain a math concept, you need to explain how mathematicians think about the concept. This is what in abstractmath I call the images and metaphors carried by the concept. Of course you have to give the precise definition of the concept and basic theorems about it. But without the images and metaphors most students, not to mention mathematicians from a different field, will find it hard to prove much more than some immediate consequences of the definition. Nor will they have much sense of the place of the concept in math and applications.

Teachers will often explain the images and metaphors with handwaving and pictures in a fairly vague way. That is good to start with, but it’s important to get more precise about the images and metaphors. That’s because images and metaphors are often not quite a good fit for the concept — they may suggest things that are false and not suggest things that are true. For example, if a set is a container, why isn’t the element-of relation transitive? (A coin in a coinpurse in your pocket is a coin in your pocket.)

“A metaphor is a useful way to think about something, but it is not the same thing as the same thing.” (I think I stole that from the Economist.) Here, I am going to get precise with the notion that a function is a map. I am acting like a mathematician in “getting precise”, but I am getting precise about a metaphor, not about a mathematical object.

### A function is a map

A map (ordinary paper map) of Minnesota has the property that each point on the paper represents a point in the state of Minnesota. This map can be represented as a mathematical function from a subset of a 2-sphere to $latex {{\mathbb R}^2}&fg=000000$. The function is a mathematical idealization of the relation between the state and the piece of paper, analogous to the mathematical description of the flight of a rocket ship as a function from $latex {{\mathbb R}}&fg=000000$ to $latex {{\mathbb R}^3}&fg=000000$.

The Minnesota map-as-function is probably continuous and differentiable, and as is well known it can be angle preserving or area preserving but not both.

So you can say there is a point on the paper that represents the location of the statue of Paul Bunyan in Bemidji. There is a set of points that represents the part of the Mississippi River that lies in Minnesota. And so on.

A function has an image. If you think about it you will realize that the image is just a certain portion of the piece of paper. Knowing that a particular point on the paper is in the image of the function is not the information contained in what we call “this map of Minnesota”.

This yields what I consider a basic insight about function-as-map:  The map contains the information about the preimage of each point on the paper map. So:

The map in the sense of a “map of Minnesota” is represented by the whole function, not merely by the image.

I think that is the essence of the metaphor that a function is a map. And I don’t think newbies in abstractmath always understand that relationship.

### A morphism is a map

The preceding discussion doesn’t really represent how we think of a paper map of Minnesota. We don’t think in terms of points at all. What we see are marks on the map showing where some particular things are. If it is a road map it has marks showing a lot of roads, a lot of towns, and maybe county boundaries. If it is a topographical map it will show level curves showing elevation. So a paper map of a state should be represented by a structure preserving map, a morphism. Road maps preserve some structure, topographical maps preserve other structure.

The things we call “maps” in math are usually morphisms. For example, you could say that every simple closed curve in the plane is an equivalence class of maps from the unit circle to the plane. Here equivalence class meaning forget the parametrization.

The very fact that I have to mention forgetting the parametrization is that the commonest mathematical way to talk about morphisms is as point-to-point maps with certain properties. But we think about a simple closed curve in the plane as just a distorted circle. The point-to-point correspondence doesn’t matter. So this example is really talking about a morphism as a shape-preserving map. Mathematicians introduced points into talking about preserving shapes in the nineteenth century and we are so used to doing that that we think we have to have points for all maps.

Not that points aren’t useful. But I am analyzing the metaphor here, not the technical side of the math.

### Groups are functors

People who don’t do category theory think the idea of a mathematical structure as a functor is weird. From the point of view of the preceding discussion, a particular group is a functor from the generic group to some category. (The target category is Set if the group is discrete, Top if it is a topological group, and so on.)

The generic group is a group in a category called its theory or sketch that is just big enough to let it be a group. If the theory is the category with finite products that is just big enough then it is the Lawvere theory of the group. If it is a topos that is just big enough then it is the classifying topos of groups. The theory in this sense is equivalent to some theory in the sense of string-based logic, for example the signature-with-axioms (equational theory) or the first order theory of groups. Johnstone’s Elephant book is the best place to find the translation between these ideas.

A particular group is represented by a finite-limit-preserving functor on the algebraic theory, or by a logical functor on the classifying topos, and so on; constructions which bring with them the right concept of group homomorphisms as well (they will be any natural transformations).

The way we talk about groups mimics the way we talk about maps. We look at the symmetric group on five letters and say its multiplication is noncommutative. “Its multiplication” tells us that when we talk about this group we are talking about the functor, not just the values of the functor on objects. We use the same symbols of juxtaposition for multiplication in any group, “$latex {1}&fg=000000$” or “$latex {e}&fg=000000$” for the identity, “$latex {a^{-1}}&fg=000000$” for the inverse of $latex {a}&fg=000000$, and so on. That is because we are really talking about the multiplication, identity and inverse function in the generic group — they really are the same for all groups. That is because a group is not its underlying set, it is a functor. Just like the map of Minnesota “is” the whole function from the state to the paper, not just the image of the function.

## Models of forms explicated, a little bit

Some miscellaneous notes about the concept of form, which I sketched (ahem) in  a series of posts TDMO1TDMO2TDMO3TDMO4,TDMO5TDMO6, TDMO7, TDMO8, and TDMO9. This series builds up to an explanation of the concept of form in the paper Graph-Based Logic and Sketches by Atish Bagchi and me.  I am now embarking on a series of posts with further explanations and comments.

### More about a model of a form

For any constructor space $latex \text{C}$ (which will be the sketch for a kind of category, a special case of a doctrine), take any object $latex F$ in the FL Cattheory of $latex \text{C}$   and adjoin a new arrow $latex f:1\to F$ where 1 is the terminal object.  $f$ is what we call a C-form and the enhanced category is denoted by $latex \text{C}_f$.  In TDMO9 I described the node $latex \text{rfs}$ for reflexive function spaces in a cartesian closed category; it is an example of a CCC-form.

A model of a $latex \text{C}$-form $latex f$  “in a C-category $latex \text{K}$” means that $latex \text{K}$ is a model of $latex \text{C}_f$ . In particular, in  $latex \text{K}$, $latex M(F)$ is nonempty.

The connection with sketches is this:  If you have a sketch in some doctrine $latex \text{C}$, the sketch consists of a graph with some diagrams, cones and cocones.  There is a node $latex F$ in the FL Cattheory of $latex \text{C}$ each of whose elements in a model of $latex \text{C}$ (in other words in a $latex \text{C}$-category) will be such a sketch.

### Example: The FP sketch for magmas

A magma is a set with a binary operation defined on it (Note 1).  It does not have to be associative or commutative or anything.  In the FP doctrine its sketch consists of one diagram

(Diagram1)

and one cone

(Cone1)

and nothing else.  The FP-Cattheory for this sketch is (equivalent to) the Lawvere theory of magmas.

The FL-Cattheory $latex \text{FP}$ for FP categories, described in some detail in TDMO8, contains a node whose inhabitants in any model of $latex \text{FP}$ (in other words in any FP-category) are all such sketches (the diagram and the cone).   This means that the FP sketch for magmas corresponds to an FP-form.  In this way you can see that all sketches in Ehresmann’s sense are forms in my sense.

This node can be constructed as the limit $latex F$ of a cone over a diagram in $latex \text{FP}$ as was done in previous posts.  You have to make the diagram become a description of the diagram and cone above, using the arrows in the constructor space $latex \text{FP}$, for example $latex \text{ob}$, $latex \text{ar}$, $latex \text{prod}:\text{ob}\times\text{ob}\rightarrow\text{cone}$ and others, and including formally commutative diagrams that say for example that Cone1′s projections go to the same object (using $latex \text{lproj}$ and $latex \text{rproj}$).   Maybe someday I will produce this diagram in a post but right now I have a cold.  (Excuses, excuses…)

Adjoining a global element to this limit node will result in an FL-sketch $latex \text{FP}_f$which contains the FL-Cattheory for $latex \text{FP}$ along with that global element.

So a model of the form for magmas in an FP category $latex \cal{B}$ is a model of $latex \text{FP}_f$ for which the model of the underlying cattheory $latex \text{FP}$ is $latex \cal{B}$; in other words it is the category $latex \cal{B}$ with a distinguished element f of the node $latex F$.  That distinguished element is a particular diagram and cone like the ones shown above for a particular object $latex A$ (because the projections onto $latex F$ include a particular projection to $latex \text{ob}$).  That object $latex A$ with the arrows corresponding to $latex m, p_1$ and $latex p_2$ is a particular magma, a model of the sketch for magmas given above.

### Notes

Note 1  “Magma” was the term used by Bourbaki for this structure.  As far as I know, very few people ever used the word until it was published in [1].  When I was a grad student in 1962-65 it was called a “groupoid”, which means something else now (something much more important than a magma in my opinion).  Now the name occurs in examples all over Wikipedia.

### References

[1] M. Hazewinkel (2001), “Magma“, in Hazewinkel, Michiel, Encyclopaedia of Mathematics, Kluwer Academic Publishers, ISBN 978-1556080104

## Addenda to the 1993 Sketches paper

I have uploaded here a version of my 1993 sketches paper with an addendum listing a few relevant papers written since then.  I have not kept up with the field well enough to contemplate a complete revision of the 1993 paper.

I recommend that more people update their papers this way.  I did it by making a new PDF file with the added references and then using Acrobat to combine it with the old paper into one file.  That way I didn’t have to re-TeX the old paper, which is a good thing, since I don’t know where some of the .sty files are.