<p align="right">Last Update: <font color="#4f81bd">July, 13, 2024</font></p> ## BIG IDEAS - A bridge between a theory and reality. - A simplified representation of reality. - A model is a representation of something that is difficult to study directly. - Models are tools to let us visualize phenomena that we normally cannot observe with our senses. - Models are an approximation. - Models are constructed based on the result of previous experiments. - Models are limited to situations. - For example, an electron cloud model doesn’t show where an electron will be in the cloud. - Models are a means to communicate an idea or to simplify a system for easier experimentation. ### Types of Models - representational models - Physical model - You might have been introduced to trains by playing with a toy model of trains. - Hot Wheels®️ are great toys for kids because they model motion as well as they are a representation of full-sized cars and trucks. - Watson and Crick’s DNA - models of the solar system that hang from a teacher’s classroom ceiling. - mathematical models - equations - focused only on math. - computational model - can be based on a mathematical model. - computer programs - simulations - fictional models - Ernest Rutherford attempted to explain his gold-foil experiment result by suggesting the results were equivalent to shooting a cannon ball at tissue paper and having the ball bounce back. - Some argue “anything can be a model” because even a poem can become useful to physicists, e.g., the name quark is from a poem. ### Examples - [[Particle Model]] ## Video <iframe width="100%" height="480px" style="border:0;" scrolling="no" src="https://go.screenpal.com/player/cYQehmHqKi?width=100%&height=100%&ff=1&title=0" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe> --- Return [[Home|Home]] | [[Science]] | [[Classical Physics]] | [[Modern Physics]] | [[Measurements]]