Models

A model in a physical sense is not a puppet, a doll, or a vintage car in 1:120 scale. It is something that mirrors reality in some simplified aspect. A model can be used to make predictions about the behavior of the physical world.

Models come in many frorms.

1 Models can be styalized, simplified, physical representations, made from paper and string, balls and springs etc., like the paper models that were used to predict the structure of DNA.

2 Models can be physical replicas, like the match-box cars used to predict the behavior of real cars sliding on a real road.

3 Models can be mathematical, as in the Schrodinger model of the hydrogen atom, with spherical harmonics, interpreted as probability functions.

4 Models can even be metaphorical, as was the model of a snake swallowing its tail, that was the first real insight into the structure of the benzene ring.

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