The spherical cow is a humorous metaphor for highly simplified scientific models of complex phenomena. Originating in theoretical physics, the metaphor refers to a tendency within some modern fields of science to develop toy models that reduce a problem to the simplest form imaginable, making calculations more feasible, even if the simplification hinders the model's application to reality.
The spherical cow is a humorous metaphor for highly simplified scientific models of complex phenomena. Originating in theoretical physics, the metaphor refers to a tendency within some modern fields of science to develop toy models that reduce a problem to the simplest form imaginable, making calculations more feasible, even if the simplification hinders the model's application to reality.
Source: Wikipedia "Spherical cow" · CC BY-SA 4.0
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