(Ebook) Classification Made Relevant: How Scientists Build and Use Classifications and Ontologies by Jules J. Berman ISBN 9780323917865, 0323917860

(Ebook) Classification Made Relevant: How Scientists Build and Use Classifications and Ontologies by Jules J. Berman ISBN 9780323917865, 0323917860

Doesn’t everyone want the universe to make sense? Wouldn’t it be great if we humans hada rational way of relating everything with everything else so that our world may become abit less confusing? As it happens, we have a nifty little device to do just that. It is called aclassification. While catalogs and indexes help us organize items, classifications organizerelationships among classes. It is through our understanding of class relationships that webegin to understand our world.For most of us, the subject of classification has never grabbed our full attention.We are notprepared to believe that the science of classification is a subject that requires a disciplinedand rigorous course of study or that there exist classifications that play an important rolein our everyday lives. In point of fact, classifications are vital to our existence. This bookbegins with a discussion of how the human mind is constantly sorting objects into classes,as we try to organize and simplify our environment. While we humans are busy sortingoranges and apples, the universe is preoccupied with enforcing a set of natural laws thatallmaterial things and all forcesmust obey. These natural laws determine the kinds of particles,atoms, molecules, and organisms we see around us and how they relate to oneanother. When we see howthings can be sorted into defined classes that have explicit relationshipswith other classes, we begin the process of understanding our universe. Themanner in which we define classes, their properties, and their relationships is best codifiedwith the judicious use of a semantic language.