Re: The RM, Newtonian mechanics, algebra and incompleteness

mountain man wrote:
>>No, I think in this analogy Newton's model does correspond to a specific
>>database design. The possibility that the relational theory itself is
>>wrong corresponds to the possibility that algebra is wrong.

> 
> Or incomplete, as has been formally demonstrated
> at least 30 years prior to the emergence of the RM.

Do you mean that algebra as in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_algebra is incomplete?

I've never come across this, what does it mean, do you have a link?

A confusion here is that our analogy is comparing things from different levels. Algebra is usually thought of as a model, so it comes above logic in "reality". In our analogy, we are comparing it to logic, which is fine as it's only an analogy. But I don't think the analogy extends to having a completeness theorem for algebra.

Paul. Received on Wed Jun 02 2004 - 10:37:44 CEST