An often valuable way to gain understanding of a difficult subject is to
conceive extreme instances, so that the full range of possibilities
becomes open. Hitler no doubt is an extreme, but when we're testing broad
statements it is useful to see if they hold or nearly hold at the
extremes.
Canonical forms apparently mean something different to some than others.
In the area of my education a canonical form was roughly equivalent to
what Peter Senge calls an archetype, with the difference being that
canonical forms are like master patterns from which perturbations can be
generated.
-- JOHN N. WARFIELD Jwarfiel@osf1.gmu.edu