<story><title>The Periodic Table of Data Structures [pdf]</title><url>https://stratos.seas.harvard.edu/files/stratos/files/periodictabledatastructures.pdf</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Sirupsen</author><text>I am fascinated with unifying theories such as the periodic table (Mendeleev&amp;#x27;s) and the Copernican view of planets orbiting the sun. The previous, Earth-centric model had more deviations than predictive power. The periodic table is also an example of a structure with tremendous predictive power.&lt;p&gt;I think it&amp;#x27;s also interesting to distinguish between systems that reveal intrinsic order (e.g. periodic table), and systems that superimpose external order (e.g. a performance review framework).&lt;p&gt;Behavioural economics is an example of a field that desperately needs a modern-day equivalent of Mendeleev to come around and structure.&lt;p&gt;I am craving more examples of this, please, anyone, share!</text></item><item><author>sytelus</author><text>This is very inspirational but not sure if this is done in the best way. The core value of Mendeleev&amp;#x27;s approach is to find gaps and predict things that should exist but we haven&amp;#x27;t found yet. However for this to happen, one must isolate the &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;atoms&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt; that can&amp;#x27;t be further broken down and identify the pattern in these atoms. The periodic table created in Figure 4 of this paper doesn&amp;#x27;t exactly sounds like isolation of &amp;quot;atoms&amp;quot; of data structures.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>r-bryan</author><text>I can&amp;#x27;t find it now but I recently read of one or two guys who systematically tabulated juggling tricks.  Gaps in the table led to new tricks which astonished experienced jugglers -- the way gaps in the periodic table led Mendeleev to predict properties of undiscovered elements.  One guy gives talks on juggling at math conferences and on math at juggling conferences.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Periodic Table of Data Structures [pdf]</title><url>https://stratos.seas.harvard.edu/files/stratos/files/periodictabledatastructures.pdf</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Sirupsen</author><text>I am fascinated with unifying theories such as the periodic table (Mendeleev&amp;#x27;s) and the Copernican view of planets orbiting the sun. The previous, Earth-centric model had more deviations than predictive power. The periodic table is also an example of a structure with tremendous predictive power.&lt;p&gt;I think it&amp;#x27;s also interesting to distinguish between systems that reveal intrinsic order (e.g. periodic table), and systems that superimpose external order (e.g. a performance review framework).&lt;p&gt;Behavioural economics is an example of a field that desperately needs a modern-day equivalent of Mendeleev to come around and structure.&lt;p&gt;I am craving more examples of this, please, anyone, share!</text></item><item><author>sytelus</author><text>This is very inspirational but not sure if this is done in the best way. The core value of Mendeleev&amp;#x27;s approach is to find gaps and predict things that should exist but we haven&amp;#x27;t found yet. However for this to happen, one must isolate the &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;atoms&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt; that can&amp;#x27;t be further broken down and identify the pattern in these atoms. The periodic table created in Figure 4 of this paper doesn&amp;#x27;t exactly sounds like isolation of &amp;quot;atoms&amp;quot; of data structures.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>frutiger</author><text>Physics is full of such examples.&lt;p&gt;Newton’s theory of gravitation unified the motion of apples falling from a tree, cannonballs thrown into walls, the motion of planet earth around the sun, and even motion of all the known planetary bodies.&lt;p&gt;Electromagnetic waves gives us one understanding of X-rays, gamma radiation, visible light, infrared, radio waves, etc.&lt;p&gt;Quantum field theory unifies every microscopic theory of matter and energy we have ever known.&lt;p&gt;This list could be much longer.</text></comment>