Spherical cow

Comic of a spherical cow as illustrated by a 1996 meeting of the American Astronomical Association, in reference to astronomy modeling

The spherical cow is a humorous metaphor for highly simplified scientific models of complex phenomena.[1][2][3][4] Originating in theoretical physics, the metaphor refers to physicists' tendency 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 metaphor and variants have subsequently been used in other disciplines.

  1. ^ Shelton, Robin; Cliffe, J. Allie. "Spherical Cows". Supernova Remnant Group. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Archived from the original on 9 October 1999.
  2. ^ Kaiser, David (2014-04-25). "The Sacred, Spherical Cows of Physics". Nautilus Quarterly.
  3. ^ Carroll, Sean. "How spherical-cow philosophy makes hard physics problems easy". New Scientist. Retrieved 2023-04-27.
  4. ^ Allain, Rhett. "What is up with the spherical cow?". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2023-04-27.