SLAP2 and the data-source vocabulary

[Markus Demleitner]

Hi Stéphane,

[I took the liberty of removing DAL from the recipient list, as this isn't
actually about SLAP2 as such any more]

On Tue, Sep 15, 2026 at 03:15:51PM +0200, Stéphane Erard via semantics wrote:
> 2) experimental (lab)
> 	this is very different from observations, e.g. in terms of data
> 	volume, instrumentation, capacities, etc, and can be described as
> 	"measurements" rather than observations. It often applies to
> 	isolated samples and provides ground truth, in contrast with
> 	usual observations. And this is the usual source of computational
> 	models.

The question is how to express this in a definition; I still wonder
how to improve on my current:

  Doing measurements using artificial samples in laboratory-like
  environments.

> 3) modelling
> I could live with the distinction between abstract/concrete simulations, but I'm not sure about the examples provided:
> "Examples would include common cosmological simulations or model spectra of atmospheres."
> — atmospheric modeling is not an abstract thing: you tweak the
> parameters to reproduce the observations, so as to explain them
> (unless you think of ab-initio computations).

Which is of course what I do here; I was thinking of grids of stellar
spectra where you systematically input abundances, temperatures and
logg without regard to actually existing stars.  Perhaps saying
"spectral grids" rather than "model spectra" is better?

> So, as discussed in Strasbourg, my feeling is that the distinction
> between abstract / concrete modeling / simulations is jesuitic and
> can only result in misclassifications, for very little added value
> - this may be different in some fields of course, but I can find no
> counterexample.

I'm fairly convinced that there is benefit to saying "This is
supposed to be in this particular universe" versus "This ought to be
this way in any universe".  This has concrete consequences: In the
first case, you can do direct comparisons to observations, in the
second, any comparisons have to go through statistics.

> The same distinction could in fact apply to experimental data
> (reference measurements vs exploratory ones), with similarly little
> benefit.

Hm... I think it would be "experiment in this universe" vs.
"experiment in any universe".  This feels like something causing
headaches when one thinks about this for too long...

Thanks,

         Markus