Theory /Models
Theory /Models
“The model is the most basic element of the scientific method. Everything done in science is done with models. A model is any simplification, substitute or stand-in for what you are actually studying or trying to predict. Models are used because they are convenient substitutes, the way that a recipe is a convenient aid in cooking."
“Even the most rudimentary science course contains some of the grand, all-encompassing, models that scientists have discovered. The periodic table of the elements is a model chemists use for predicting properties of the elements. Physicists use Newton's law to predict how objects will interact, such as planets and spaceships. In geology, the continental drift model predicts the past positions of continents. But these three models are atypical because they are immensely successful. Most models used are nowhere near so powerful or widely useful. But scientists use these less-successful ones anyway. Models are used at every turn in a scientific study. Samples are models. Ideas are models. Methods are models. Every attempt at a scientific study involves countless models, many of them small and of interest only to a small group of other scientists. The primary activity of the hundreds of thousands of U.S. scientists is to produce new models, resulting in tens of thousands of scientific papers published per year.”
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