Multidimensional Search
Most algorithms and data structures for searching a dataset are based on the classical binary search algorithm, and generalizations such as the k-d tree or range tree work by interleaving the binary search algorithm over the separate coordinates and treating each spatial coordinate as an independent search constraint. These data structures are well-suited for range query problems asking for every point that satisfies and .
A limitation of these multidimensional search structures is that they are only defined for searching over objects that can be treated as vectors. They aren't applicable for the more general case in which the algorithm is given only a collection of objects and a function for measuring the distance or similarity between two objects. If, for example, someone were to create a function that returns a value indicating how similar one image is to another, a natural algorithmic problem would be to take a dataset of images and find the ones that are similar according to the function to a given query image.
Read more about this topic: Metric Tree
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“To develop an empiricist account of science is to depict it as involving a search for truth only about the empirical world, about what is actual and observable.... It must involve throughout a resolute rejection of the demand for an explanation of the regularities in the observable course of nature, by means of truths concerning a reality beyond what is actual and observable, as a demand which plays no role in the scientific enterprise.”
—Bas Van Fraassen (b. 1941)