A theory of base motives

A category of correspondences based on Waldhausen A-theory has interesting analogies, in the context of differential topology, to categories of mixed Tate motives studied in arithmetic geometry. In particular, the Hopf object S \wedge_A S (regarding A(*) as a kind of local ring over the sphere spectrum) has some similarities to a motivic group for this category; its associated rational Lie algebra is free, on odd-degree generators…