Re: Fundamental Data Types?

From: Paul Vernon <paul.vernon_at_ukk.ibmm.comm>
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 18:40:19 +0100
Message-ID: <bg905h$h64$1_at_gazette.almaden.ibm.com>


"Dave Ulmer" <daveulmer_at_ccwebster.net> wrote in message news:bg8pk9$m3mca$1_at_ID-186663.news.uni-berlin.de...
>
> "Paul Vernon" <paul.vernon_at_ukk.ibmm.comm> wrote in message
> news:bg8irg$1iam$1_at_gazette.almaden.ibm.com...
>
> > I'm not saying it's not an interesting question, but may I ask why you
> want to know
> > this and why ask in this newsgroup?
>
> I have tried talking to Physicists about data types and they just respond
> with a blank stare.

Talk about SI Units instead. http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/units.html

> I wanted to know if any of you database people have ever
> thought about the physics of data?

The "physics of data"? Well I vote for this kind of stuff:

    http://asklepia.org/chaosophy/chaosophy21.html     "According to his (Ed Fredkin's) theory of digital physics, information is more fundamental than matter and energy. He believes that atoms, electrons, and quarks consist ultimately of bits--binary units of information..."

> All living things process many different types of data that our universe
> presents.

That's certainly one intuition behind the idea of (data) types.

> The question is what are all these different types of data?
>

My question would be, do the SI units make a good basis for a formal set of data types of the kind we would like to see in some standard set of types for use in databases and other formal systems?

Regards
Paul Vernon
Business Intelligence, IBM Global Services Received on Wed Jul 30 2003 - 19:40:19 CEST

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