The other day I told my students that every science teacher (including myself) has been lying to them! I went on to explain that everyone starts off learning overly simplified models and that the more you study, the more detailed and complex the models become (or so simple, unifying and unintuitive that they hurt your brain!).
| Yet another excellent xkcd slice of truth |
But of course the truth is that even are best theories are still simply models: analogies in the language of math that do an excellent job predicting the results of future experiments. Descriptions of things are not the same thing as the actual thing itself!
“It would be possible to describe everything scientifically,
but it would make no sense.
It would be a description without meaning—
as if you described a Beethoven symphony
as a variation of wave pressure.”
- Einstein
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