alright just for fun: AMA but only about math, will attempt to speed-explain stuff with as few symbols and equations as possible and see what happens
(esp happy to field questions about stuff that seems basic to you and that you feel like you should've gotten a long time ago!)
Conversation
What do you know about mathematical understandings of the words "theory" and "model"?
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"model" has a very narrow technical meaning in model theory and "theory" has a few narrow technical meanings, probably neither of which are related to your question. other than that i think (pure) mathematicians mostly don't think about this sort of thing
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I actually am asking about the technical meanings!
For clarity my motivation comes from the insight that our best physical *theories* are really just *models* that predict observables accurately.
So I want to know more about what this insight is precisely saying
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Replying to
here is an essay about more or less this topic:

