_Monoids._

A monoid \\((M,∗,e) \\) is

1. a set \\(M \\);

2. a function \\(∗:M×M \to M \\); and

3. an element \\(e \in M \\) called the identity;

subject to two laws:

Unit: the equations \\(e∗m=m \\) and \\(m∗e=m \\) hold for any \\(m \in M \\).

Associative: the equation \\((m1∗m2)∗m3=m1∗(m2∗m3) \\) holds for any \\(m1,m2,m3 \in M \\).

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(a) Show that \\((\mathbb{N},+,0) \\) forms a monoid.

(b) A string in 0 and 1 is a (possibly) empty sequence of 0s and 1s; examples include 0, 11, 0110, 0101110 and so on. We write the empty string []. Let \\(List_{0,1} \\) be the set of strings in 0 and 1. Given two strings \\(a \\) and \\(b \\), we may concatenate them to form a new string \\(ab \\). Show that \\(List_{0,1} \\), together with concatenation and the empty string [], form a monoid.

(c) Explain why (prove that) every monoid can be viewed as a category with a single object.