Re: The Quantum Gravity Problem

From: Dawn M. Wolthuis <dwolt_at_tincat-group.comREMOVE>
Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 17:24:46 -0500
Message-ID: <ckurfn$8tl$1_at_news.netins.net>


"Kenneth Downs" <firstinit.lastname_at_lastnameplusfam.net> wrote in message news:5d1qkc.m52.ln_at_mercury.downsfam.net...
> 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
> > on
> >> 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
> > do
> >> not play nice together. Relativity describes gravity well, but it is
not
> > a
> >> 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
> > for
> >> 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
> > implies
> >> that we can find a way to add hierarchies to the RDM before we will get
> > RDM
> >> into a hierarchical form.
> >
> > Yes, yes -- I have used this analogy before. The fun thing about it is
> > that the answer to how to combine the disperate theories is the same for
> > both (physics theory of everything and database theory) -- one word:
> > Strings. (OK, I know that is simplistic in both cases, but it could be
> > more true than some might think on the database side).
>
> 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?

I am almost completely ignorant regarding physics, bu some suggest that a theory of strings is the solution to the Theory Of Everything (TOE) in physics, being consistent with relativity on the large scale and quantum theory at the small end (if I understood correctly). I few years ago I read a lay person's treatment of this in Brian Green's The Elegant Universe (not considered terribly accurate by physicists, but perhaps "close enough" for non-phyiscs people like me). It is about "superstrings" and the TOE.

As for computers, databases, and strings, the connection of perhaps more obvious. It's all 1's and 0's at the low end and at the high end (for the interface with human beings) it could be video or audio or pictures or words, but in between there -- from the perspective of the database -- it's all strings, right?

So, a database theory of everything (DTOE), we could focus on the strings (and sub-strings and superstrings).

OK, it was likely one of those thoughts that entertained me, in that the TOE and DTOE both came down to strings (although quite different definitions of such) and that I should have kept to myself. cheers! --dawn --dawn Received on Mon Oct 18 2004 - 00:24:46 CEST

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