Modeling of the World

"Modeling of the World" gave a good description of models and what they can do for us. Models can be any complete and consistent set of verbal arguments, mathematical equations or computational rules which is thought to correspond to some other entity, its prototype. Models provide several purposes including data analysis, interpretation, control, prediction and understanding key aspects. Models can help us understand many different things. An important thing for a model to help us understand the world is that it needs to strip reality from unnecessary details, and capture the fundamental processes that cause the phenomenon we wish to understand with the model. Key strategies for producing models are understanding the problem that one is trying to solve, formulate a plan, carry out the plan and look back to see if the model was plan or model was correct. The article also briefly discusses Heinrich Hertz's concepts of building formal models which he called "images." "He wanted to be as clear, rigorous, and consise as possible, so that implicit, and perhaps unnecessary concepts could be eliminated from physical theories."