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Example: the first question on the first problem set [1] shows how the idea of the Least Common Multiple and the Greatest Common Divisor are analogous to ⊤ and ⊥ in PLT, or "any" and "never" in TypeScript. (Specifically, the Join and Meet operations)

[1]: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-s097-applied-cate...



LCM and GCD are meet and join (union supertype and intersection subtype in PLT), not top and bottom. Top/any would correspond to the product of all numbers (union of all factors), and bottom/never would correspond to 1 (intersection of all factors).


I don’t know PLT very well but wouldn’t top/bottom also be considered terminal/initial objects in categorical terms?


For that you just need Lattice theory ...


Oh right, "Lattice" is the word I was looking for. It's been too long. Would that be considered a subset of category theory, a precursor to it, or another field that it somewhat "unifies"?


Lattice theory is it’s own field that exists outside of and before category theory. All lattices form a category, though, but not vice versa.




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