datacentric terms from WebOnt

[Rob Seaman]

Hi Ed,

> These terms and their definitions are at the level of what you need  
> to read an science article in a major newspaper or something like it.

Read, but not necessarily comprehend :-)

...but then, the comprehension of the people writing the articles is  
equally in question.

> second 0 | 1/60 of a minute; the basic unit of time adopted under  
> the Systeme International d'Unites

I feel obligated to point out that definition 0 here is really two  
different things:

> second 0 (a) | 1/60 of a minute (1/1440 of a day)

> second 0 (b) | the basic unit of time adopted under the Systeme  
> International d'Unites

This is the crux of the issue with leap seconds.  The point being that  
a "second 0 (a)" may be referenced to different kinds of days,  
although typically this is the mean solar day.  A "second 0 (b)" is  
guaranteed to be nondenumerable to any of them, including the mean  
solar day.

Hmm - there is an interesting question.  The founding geeks were  
clever fellows and recognized this problem with the definition of the  
second.  In fact, it was proposed that the SI unit be called the  
"essen" in honor of Louis Essen:



who built the first atomic clock.  How do the vocabularies, thesauri,  
ontologies and all that handle partial synonyms?  That is - some terms  
have multiple meanings.  Some of those meanings are shared with other  
terms.

Rob
--
"If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much  
as to be out of danger?"  - T. H. Huxley


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