Subject: query
Date: Sat, 08 Jun 2002 11:36:21 -0400
From: jim stasheff <stasheff@email.unc.edu>

 With regard to the convention that the interchange
rule for any two graded thing:

I wrote an author:
> The sign convention you use is more usually called Koszul's or Mac Lane's.

He responded:
``Finding the proper reference for this convention
would cause me a lot of trouble.
Do you know the source of the sign rule?''

For graded algebras, graded commutativity used this sign long long ago
e.g. at least in the wedge product of diff forms
but who first used it for e.g. moving a function past an element?

( f \otimes g) (x \otimes y) = (-1)^{ deg g deg s} f(x) \otimes g(y)

??

and who first ennuciated it as a general principle?

I remember at IAS aftr the summer of foliation in Mexico there was
` a fundamental contradiciton' in math because people had NOT applied
the rule consistently

jim