- From: Sandro Hawke <sandro@w3.org>
- Date: Thu, 09 Sep 2004 08:15:44 -0400
- To: Patrick.Stickler@nokia.com
- cc: www-tag@w3.org
[moved to www-tag from public-webarch-comments]
> A representation reflects the state of a resource. I see no reason why
> a URI can't denote the actual coffee-maker (not its counters, timers, etc.)
> and have that URI resolve to a representation of the coffee-maker, reflecting
> its state (its counters, timers, etc.)
As I understand physics (at about the 2nd year level), the actual
coffee-maker is made up of atoms, and we cannot encode the state of
even a single atom in a finite sequence of octets. In classical
physics, the state would have to be encoded in real numbers, which are
often infinite. In quantum mechanics, the state is also unknowable --
it's theoretically impossible to measure the state beyond a certain
precision.
What you are talking about encoding is the state of some abstract
model of the coffee maker, and I'm fine with that -- but then your URI
is for an abstract model -- a kind of conceptual entity, not a
physical object. Maybe I could clarify my text to say how such
conceptual models are information.
Arguably, my notion of the coffee-maker is also an abstract model, but
that doesn't weaken my argument. I do not believe you can build wide
consensus on an approach to modelling physical objects in which their
state can be encoded in a finite sequence of octets.
-- sandro
Received on Thursday, 9 September 2004 12:13:31 UTC