A basic example of a Hopf algebra is a group algebra: it is the vector space having the group as basis and having multiplication linearly extending that of the group. We can start with a category instead of a group, form the free vector space on the set of its morphisms, and define multiplication to be composition when possible and zero when not. The multiplication has an identity if the category has finitely many objects; this is a basic example of a weak bialgebra. It is a weak Hopf algebra when the category is a groupoid. Group algebras are also Frobenius algebras. We shall generalize weak bialgebras and Frobenius algebras to the context of monoidal categories and describe some of their theory using the geometry of string diagrams.

Vector spaces and linear functions form our paradigmatic monoidal category. The concepts underpinning linear algebra admit definitions, operations and constructions with analogues in many other parts of mathematics. We shall see how to generalize much of linear algebra to the context of monoidal categories. Traditional examples of such categories are obtained by replacing vector spaces by linear representations of a given compact group or by sheaves of vector spaces. More recent examples come from low-dimensional topology, in particular, from knot theory where the linear functions are replaced by braids or tangles. These geometric monoidal categories are often free in an appropriate sense, a fact that can be used to obtain algebraic invariants for manifolds.