[Data-modeling] Astronomy: Discovery Properties

[Ed Laurent]

I agree. A Discovery type with these properties:

> Discoverer, Discovery Date

should be sufficient. You can co-type it to anything you want, add a few
properties if needed for the type of discovery (e.g., "Astronomical
discovery"), and reciprocate it with the type of discovery. Not limiting the
discovery to a single value will allow you to handle multiple discovery
instances of the same topic. This kind of type would be very useful for time
lines.

Invention is an interesting use case for a Discovery type. For simplicity it
could be typed as something that occurs instantaneously. However, inventions
typically have a development time span that may contain multiple spans of
time.

If you want to describe the discovery as something that is not instantaneous
then the event type <http://www.freebase.com/tools/schema/time/event> might
be more appropriate because of its start and end properties. I do like the
simplicity of a single date though, especially for Discoveries in the
strictest sense.

-Ed


On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 9:44 PM, Danny Hillis <danny at appliedminds.com> wrote:

> I was trying to imagine a query that would access the "discovery
> date", and was imagining the use case of plotting a timeline of
> discoveries, inventions, etc. in the context of other historical
> events.  If there were topics for historical events, then content of
> the timeline could be data driven, selected by the categories or
> genres of the topics. Otherwise, I don't see how to do it without an
> ad-hoc query for each type discovery, invention, etc.
> -Danny
>
> On May 5, 2008, at 4:35 PM, Jeff Prucher wrote:
>
> > To model it as an event, assuming that this means to use the "event"
> > type to
> > record information about the discovery of an object, requires the
> > creation
> > of topics like "The Discovery of Pluto". But all using the "event"
> > type gets
> > us is the start and end dates, and an inclusion/included by tree,
> > the latter
> > of which probably doesn't apply. This actually seems like more work
> > for less
> > payoff than just using the properties "discovered by" and "discovery
> > date",
> > since "discovered by" would have to be on a new type ("astronomical
> > discovery") that included the type "event". Unless you had something
> > else in
> > mind, in which case kindly ignore this message.
> >
> > Jeff
> >
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com
> > > [mailto:data-modeling-bounces at freebase.com] On Behalf Of
> > > Gordon Mackenzie
> > > Sent: Monday, May 05, 2008 4:00 PM
> > > To: Freebase data modeling mailing list
> > > Subject: Re: [Data-modeling] Astronomy: Discovery Properties
> > >
> > > No I haven't really considered it as an event.
> > >
> > > Would it be valuable?
> > >
> > > One thing I understand is that there can be multiple
> > > discoverer's for asteroid's & comets over a period of time
> > > (usually within days of each other).
> > >
> > > I have no knowledge on event modeling though. Do you have an
> > > existing example or a model in mind?
> > >
> > > ~ Gordon
> > >
> > > <<< gordon at metaweb.com >>>
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On May 3, 2008, at 11:18 PM, Danny Hillis wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > > On May 2, 2008, at 6:10 PM, Gordon Mackenzie wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >> So Celestial Object would have added specifically:
> > > >>
> > > >> Discoverer, Discovery Date, Discovery Method, Discovery status,
> > > >> Discovery Institution/organization
> > > >>
> > > >> And then remove/move the data for the related discovery
> > > properties in
> > > >> Planet/Asteroid/Comet  types to the equivalents in Celestial
> > Body.
> > > >> Planet type might have both jupiter and earth-based radius
> > > and mass
> > > >> properties.
> > > >>
> > > >
> > > > Gordon,
> > > > Have you thought about how the discovery of a planet get
> > > modeled as an
> > > > Event?
> > > > -Danny
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Data-modeling mailing list
> > > Data-modeling at freebase.com
> > > http://lists.freebase.com/mailman/listinfo/data-modeling
> > >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Data-modeling mailing list
> > Data-modeling at freebase.com
> > http://lists.freebase.com/mailman/listinfo/data-modeling
>
> _______________________________________________
> Data-modeling mailing list
> Data-modeling at freebase.com
> http://lists.freebase.com/mailman/listinfo/data-modeling
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.freebase.com/pipermail/data-modeling/attachments/20080505/b7bca343/attachment.htm