18. Formation Data Context

This web page is associated with a book called called Reverse Engineering the Universe.

The book can be bought at: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Dr_Jerome_Heath_Reverse_Engineering_the_Universe?id=_OvqBQAAQBAJ

The book gives a more complete explanation of these issues and includes a number of related topic discussions. The combination develops the understanding of these concepts from a number of viewpoints.

Super Archeological Layering

Formation Data Context is a concept relating how the data and data relationships are formed in the computer. These relationships need to be understood to the level that we can manipulate the data and relationships in programming (or commanding) the computer and have decent predictions about what is happening and what the results will be.

In the real world the data or information tends to be related to real things: temperature, clouds, rain, miles traveled, dollars spent, etc. There is a reality associated with the data. The data within the computer can be associated with such realities that are outside the computer but inside the computer it cannot inherently have any such real relationships. Within the computer the data has three basic characteristics: value, address, and function. The data has a value, say 76. The fact that this is degrees or speed or height is actually a separate data item.

A second characteristic of this data is the address that the data is “kept.” When we first work with computer data the importance of the “address” of the data is hard to understand. But knowing the address is the only way of finding the data in the computer. Often the address is “held” in the name given to the site or place of the data by the programmer. This makes finding the data “easy.” But there are more complex ways to keep track of the address of the data that at first seem elusive but make finding a large amount of data easier for the computer.

Jerome Heath