XML Topic Maps: Creating and Using Topic Maps for the Web

The Need for Classification

Classification has been performed for as long as humans have been around. Throughout history humans have needed to group and separate things, putting those items into categories. Classification, as a subject of research, really begins with Aristotle and enters modern times with Carlous Linnaeus. However, as already mentioned, the process of classification remains a moving target.

Carlous Linnaeus, also known as Carl von Linné, is often called the Father of Taxonomy.^[2] He was a Swedish biologist whose ambition was to catalog all known organisms. He used a polynomial^[3] system to achieve his goal. In 1735 he published the first edition of his classification of living things, the Systema Naturae. His system (that is, ...