Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 15:01:29 -0500 (EST)
From: Michael Cole <mmcole@math.lsa.umich.edu>
Subject: point set trivia

As long as we're discussing basepoints, I have a simple question about
smash products.  In the category of based k spaces one easily proves that
the smash product is associative using the fact that the compactly
generated product preserves proclusions.  I have heard it said that the
category of all based topological spaces is not symmetric monoidal under
the smash product since the smash product is not associative.  What is the
simplest example of nonassociativity?

Mike Cole