You have a hierarchy of data you want to represent:
If you want to store this hierarchy in a database (like an SQL database), the data has to be "normalized," or "flattened" ...
Using the magic of SQL, the actual category ID becomes irrelevant as we use the left bounding number as the new index...
If you imagine it like a bunch of rubber bands (a different rubber band for each "category"), and the bands can wrap around each other, and there's an infinite number line that the bands line up on, kind of like if they were next to a ruler, and you can move bands around freely ...
Original Article SQL Mumbo Jumbo
TODO: much better documentation on how this works...