The strength of some physical theories lies both in their exactness and their imprecision. As physicists, we look for theories that provide quantitative, precise and measurable predictions. But when faced with a complex physical phenomenon, the most successful approach often involves simplifying it drastically with the aim of distilling the essence of the problem. This is by no means straightforward: intuition and experience provide guidelines, and deduction is often of little help. Once simplified, we apply all the theoretical methods at our disposal to solve the model and, eventually, it becomes a cornerstone on which we build a complete theory.
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