Re: Why are [Database] Mathematicians Crippled ?

On Sunday, February 1, 2015 at 9:21:54 AM UTC-8, Norbert_Paul wrote:
> > It is not a secret that [SQL] database applications in science are mediocre,
> > at best.
>
> Actually, to me this is new. Can you give examples?

I'm just relaying the message from somebody else, who famously said that databases are good at many things, but not especially good at any of them.

It is tough call to prove that something is not the best, but let's try to find a reason. The most ubiquitous objects in physics are functions, and the most primitive functions are polynomials. How do you represent polynomials in database? The simplest of all polynomials are linear polynomials, and associated objects -- matrices -- permeate through virtually all branches of science. One can argue that matrix representation as a ternary relation is natural (or not ugly, at least). One can even be impressed by matrix multiplication query which is just relation's self-join followed by aggregation with group by. However, the success is short-lived, and query of matrix inverse is not expressible with standard relational operations.

> > Still, I would suggest looking up there (rather than in "more
> > practical" fields. For example, chemical databases do some nontrivial
> > matching of substances. Likewise, in protein chemistry topology might be very
> > important.
>
> I personally would stress "might" because I don't know how topology is related
> to protein folding. This could be an interesting question, though.

I'm just making a guess that application of topology would be something more significant that just architecture (or a similar level engineering discipline). Many CS researchers venture to do bold things, here is the example:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1208.6416

Certain poster on this group is emphasizing how theoretical stuff such as normalization theory has no real impact in practice. That is because this is a field which patiently awaits its time. I would rather discuss this, rather than importance (or lack of thereof) of nulls. Received on Sun Feb 01 2015 - 19:43:33 CET