Enrichment Topic: “Efficient” Pairing Functions, with Applications

Abstract

We have already seen the preceding admonition by William of Occam (fourteenthth century), in Section 6.1.2. The principle that underlies the admonition—always to strive for simplicity—is particularly worth heeding when one seeks mathematical models of computational phenomena, for it is always tempting to embellish one’s models with “real” features of the phenomenon or structure being modeled.

—Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.

Occam’s razor, William of Occam)