Re: Temporal database - no end date

On Jan 23, 6:05 pm, "David" <davi..._at_iinet.net.au> wrote:
> On Jan 24, 3:29 am, "NENASHI, Tegiri" <tnmai..._at_gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > One can not model the continuum with the floating numbers because they
> > are discrete and finite like the computer integers.
>
> Evidently you require models to be isomorphic to what they model. I
> presume you would say an C++ "int" doesn't model an integer, or a
> computer doesn't model a universal Turing machine. I have a far less
> restrictive notion of the word "model".
>
> How would you describe the relationship between floating point numbers
> and the reals? Pretends? Imitates? Masquerades? We need some word.

Isn't the canonical word "abstraction?" I have always thought of a model
as something rather more specific.

But this is just devolving into a discussion of definitions, which in general aren't very interesting.

Marshall Received on Wed Jan 24 2007 - 03:27:33 CET