The Categories of Boolean Lattices, Boolean Rings and Boolean Spaces

Abstract

In Theorem 4 of [5] Stone stated that the theory of Boolean rings was "mathematically equivalent" to the theory of Boolean spaces without, however, properly defining the phrase "mathematically equivalent". It is the main purpose of this note to establish a precise reformulation of Theorem 4 in [5]. This is accomplished by introducing special classes of maps between Boolean lattices, Boolean rings and Boolean spaces respectively, and showing the categories arising in conjunction with these maps to be equivalent in the sense of Grothendieck [2]. Thus the notion of equivalence of categories will replace the phrase "mathematically equivalent" in [5]. In addition the well-known axiomatic characterization of meet and complementation of Boolean lattices with unit is discussed in analogous terms.