Re: The Quantum Gravity Problem

Dawn M. Wolthuis wrote:

> "Kenneth Downs" <firstinit.lastname_at_lastnameplusfam.net> wrote in message
> news:n72pkc.f8h.ln_at_mercury.downsfam.net...

>> Here is a little its-been-a-good-week Friday musing.
>>
>> I wonder if database theory is suffering from a version of what is going

>> in Physics.  In Physics for the past few decades they have had to
>> struggle with the fact that the two fundamental theories of the twentieth
>> century

>> not play nice together.  Relativity describes gravity well, but it is not

>> quantum theory.   Quantum theory is considered the most successful theory
>> in history, but does not describe gravity.  Since most physicists believe
>> that the underlying truths are quantum in nature, everyone is searching

>> a quantum theory of gravity, instead of searching for the relativistic
>> theory of E & M and nuclear forces.
>>
>> So can we draw any useful analogy here, with perhaps the RDM being
>> quantum
>> and Hierarchies being Relativity?  This choice is not arbitrary, it

>> that we can find a way to add hierarchies to the RDM before we will get

>> into a hierarchical form.

Strings, very cool, I'm guessing some kind of network? I'd like to understand this, but could you help me connect the dots? (get it? connect-the-dots, graphs? asking for help? ooh, ha ha ha.) Do I start at the wikipedia on di-graph? How do I get from 3Nf TO branes?

>
> Hierarchies are one thing, but navigating data is another challenge. Yes,
> if you HAVE all of the data, you can treat it as sets and similate
> navigation with joins and all, but I think we ought to be able to navigate
> data just as we navigate the web -- we don't have to have all of the web
> available in order to select an entire set before zeroing in on the page
> we
> want to go to. I didn't say that well (as usual), but hopefully that
> helps to show why I would suggest we are not talking about hierarchical vs
> relational, but about di-graphs vs relations. What's common to both?
> String, for one, but also functions. cheers! --dawn
>

Bringing the web into it tends to raise flags for me. Have you read Hans Reiser's views on information models? It can be found at:

http://www.namesys.com/whitepaper.html

I haven't read his whitepaper in a couple of years, but he is looking at search engines, file formats like XML, and databases, and asking what can be done to create a uniform system of information management. Your mention of the web caused me to realize I need to reread the whitepaper myself.

-- 
Kenneth Downs
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