Model: types of models, concept and description

Every modern person faces the concepts "object" and "model" every day. Examples of objects are as objects accessible to touch (book, earth, table, pen, pencil), and inaccessible (stars, skies, meteorites), objects of artistic creativity and mental activity (composition, poem, problem solving, painting, music and Others). And each object is perceived by man only as a single whole.

An object. Kinds. Characteristics

Proceeding from the foregoing, it can be concluded that the object is part of the external world, which can be perceived as a single whole. Each object of perception has its own individual characteristics that distinguish it from others (form, sphere of use, color, smell, size, and so on). The most important characteristic of an object is the name, but for a complete qualitative description of it, one name is not enough. The more complete and detailed the object, the easier it is to recognize it.

Models. Definition. Classification

In his activity (educational, scientific, artistic, technological), people daily use existing ones and create new models of the external world. They make it possible to form an impression of processes and objects that are inaccessible to direct perception (very small or, conversely, very large, very slow or very fast, very far away, and so on).

So, the model is an object reflecting the most important features of the phenomenon, object or process being studied. There may be several variations of models of the same object, as well as several objects can be described by a single model. For example, a similar situation occurs in mechanics, when different bodies with a material shell can be expressed by material points, that is, the same model (man, car, train, plane).

It is important to remember that no model is able to fully replace the displayed object, since it displays only some of its properties. But sometimes in solving certain problems of various scientific and industrial currents, the description of the appearance of the model can be not only useful, but the only opportunity to present and study the features of the characteristics of the object.

Scope of modeling subjects

Models play an important role in various spheres of human life: in science, education, trade, design and others. For example, without their application, it is impossible to design and assemble technical devices, mechanisms, electrical circuits, machines, buildings and so on, since without preliminary calculations and drawing a drawing, even the simplest part is impossible.

Often used models for educational purposes. They are called visual. For example, from geography, a person gets the idea of the Earth as a planet by studying the globe. Also, visual models are relevant in other sciences (chemistry, physics, mathematics, biology, and others).

In turn, theoretical models are in demand in the study of natural and exact sciences (biology, chemistry, physics, geometry). They reflect the properties, behavior and structure of the objects under study.

Modeling as a process

Modeling is a method of cognition, which includes the study of existing models and the creation of new ones. The subject of knowledge of this science is the model. Types of models are ranked according to different properties. As you know, any object has many characteristics. When creating a specific model, only the most important ones are identified for the solution of the task.

The process of creating models is artistic creativity in all its diversity. In this regard, virtually every artistic or literary work can be viewed as a model of a real object. For example, paintings are models of real landscapes, still lifes, people, literary works - models of human lives and so on. For example, when creating an airplane model in order to study its aerodynamic qualities, it is important to reflect the geometric properties of the original in it, but its color is absolutely unimportant.

The same objects are studied by different sciences from different points of view, and accordingly their types of models for study will also differ. For example, physics studies the processes and results of the interaction of objects, chemistry - chemical composition, biology - the behavior and structure of organisms.

The model for the time factor

Regarding time, the models are divided into two types: static and dynamic. An example of the first type is a one-time examination of a person in a clinic. It displays a picture of his state of health at the moment, while his medical map will be a dynamic model, reflecting changes that occur in the body for a certain period of time.

Model. Types of models relative to shape

As already understood, models can differ in different characteristics. So, all the now known types of data models can be conditionally divided into two main classes: material (subject) and informational.

The first type conveys the physical, geometric and other properties of objects in material form (anatomical model, globe, mock-up of a building, and so on).

Types of information models differ in the form of implementation: sign and figurative. Imagery models (photographs, drawings, etc.) are visual realizations of objects fixed on a certain medium (photo, film, paper or digital). They are widely used in the educational process (posters), in the study of various sciences (botany, biology, paleontology and others). Signed models are the implementations of objects in the form of symbols of one of the known language systems. They can be represented in the form of formulas, text, tables, schemes and so on. There are cases when, by creating a character model (the types of models convey specifically the content that is required to study certain characteristics of the object), several well-known languages are used at once. An example in this case are various graphs, diagrams, maps and the like, where both graphic symbols and symbols of one of the language systems are used.

In order to reflect information from various spheres of life, three main types of information models are used: network, hierarchical and tabular. Of these, the most popular is the latter, used to fix various states of objects and their characteristic data.

Table implementation of the model

This type of information model, as already mentioned above, is the most famous. It looks like this: it is an ordinary rectangular table consisting of rows and columns, the columns of which are filled with the symbols of one of the known sign languages of the world. Table models are used to characterize objects that have the same properties. With their help in various scientific fields, both dynamic and static models can be created. For example, tables containing mathematical functions, various statistics, train schedules and so on.

Mathematical model. Types of models

A separate type of information models are mathematical ones. All kinds of mathematical models usually consist of equations written in the language of algebra. The solution of these problems, as a rule, is based on the process of searching for equivalent transformations that promote the expression of a variable in the form of a formula. There are also exact solutions for some equations (square, linear, trigonometric, and so on). As a consequence, to solve them one has to apply the methods of solution with an approximate accuracy, in other words, such kinds of mathematical data as numerical (half-division method), graphical (plotting), and others. The method of half division is expedient to use only under the condition that a segment is known where the function takes polar values for certain values of the root of the equation .

And the charting method is unified. It can be used both in the above-described case, and in a situation where the solution can only be approximate, and not exact, in the case of the so-called "rough" solution of the equations.