I would like to ask a question about function quantities, but I didn't find any adequate tags. If I didn't miss something, it might be useful to introduce a new tag, for example "physical quantities".
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$\begingroup$ Seems more to be a programming/computer science question to me. Perhaps you could give some physics context and a small example? $\endgroup$– Jon CusterSep 22, 2020 at 12:11
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$\begingroup$ @JonCuster For example, if I know the position of some object in dependency of time, I can choose a unit of time and a unit of lenght and the function that maps time to position (that is physical quantities to physical quantities) becomes a function that maps numbers to numbers. But it is straight forward to define integrals and derivatives for function quantities and this allows us to do calculations and develop our theories without having to think about units. $\endgroup$– FilippoSep 22, 2020 at 12:33
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$\begingroup$ To be honest, I don't see what this has to do with programming. $\endgroup$– FilippoSep 22, 2020 at 12:35
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3$\begingroup$ Well, the page you point to is part of the documentation of a Lisp package. As for units, people mess around with those all the time - there isn't anything magic about that. Again, an example of the type of question you might ask would be good, as well as examples of extant questions that would benefit from such a tag. $\endgroup$– Jon CusterSep 22, 2020 at 12:45
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$\begingroup$ I agree with Jon. Put the question you want to ask here as an example of a question that needs this tag. But you also need to find other questions that need this tag and put the links in your question explaining why they need this tag as well. $\endgroup$– BioPhysicistSep 22, 2020 at 12:56
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$\begingroup$ @JonCuster I was wondering if there are some people out there, who have further developed and formalized this theory. Because I would be very interested to read more about this. $\endgroup$– FilippoSep 22, 2020 at 13:03
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$\begingroup$ Well, you have a set of documentation on line from an institution with a number of function authors listed in the docs. A bit of poking around on Web of Science (or similar database) searching on the names in that time frame may yield some starting points to then research forward in time from. Standard literature search stuff. $\endgroup$– Jon CusterSep 22, 2020 at 13:08
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$\begingroup$ @JonCuster The site is from 1994 and I couldn't find a way to contact Greg R. Olsen and Thomas R. Gruber, the people who are mentioned next to "Copyright". I even searched for them on Web of Science. In addition, searching for "function quantities" doesn't yield any new results. $\endgroup$– FilippoSep 22, 2020 at 13:52
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$\begingroup$ I get 15 hits for 'Gruber, TR', including sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1042814383710083 which may be valuable as a starting place. $\endgroup$– Jon CusterSep 22, 2020 at 14:21
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$\begingroup$ @JonCuster Thank you, even Gregory R Olsen appears there :) $\endgroup$– FilippoSep 22, 2020 at 14:26
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$\begingroup$ Odd that your search didn't pull it up. Not sure why... $\endgroup$– Jon CusterSep 22, 2020 at 14:31
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1 Answer
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"Function quantity" appears to be a concept confined to the Lisp programming language, and it is not widely used in physics. (If it is, then the burden is on you to show otherwise, to be blunt.)
To the extent that questions about this would be on-topic here (and not just questions about programming), then they would be suitably covered by the dimensional-analysis and units tags.
Tags are not generally created for single questions (and indeed if the tag were created for your question and not used anywhere else, it would be automatically deleted by the system after a set period). If you want to argue for the creation of a new tag, then the criterion you need to meet is exhibiting a sufficient number of existing questions for which the tag would apply and for which it would be a useful additional organizing qualifier.
As for the question you mention as a motivation, "I was wondering if there are some people out there, who have further developed and formalized this theory", the page you linked to references the paper An Ontology for Engineering Mathematics, also available here. Google Scholar lists just short of 600 citations to this work. (This kind of follow-the-trail is standard, and you're normally expected to be able to follow it on your own in an academic setting.) If you're having trouble finding something specific within that pool, then that could make an on-topic question, so long as the query is actually about physics.
answered Sep 22, 2020 at 15:48