Continuous modelling is the
mathematical
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
practice of applying a
model
A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure.
Models c ...
to
continuous
Continuity or continuous may refer to:
Mathematics
* Continuity (mathematics), the opposing concept to discreteness; common examples include
** Continuous probability distribution or random variable in probability and statistics
** Continuous ...
data (data which has a potentially infinite number, and divisibility, of attributes). They often use
differential equation
In mathematics, a differential equation is an equation that relates one or more unknown functions and their derivatives. In applications, the functions generally represent physical quantities, the derivatives represent their rates of change, an ...
s and are converse to
discrete modelling Discrete modelling is the discrete analogue of continuous modelling. In discrete modelling, formulae are fit to discrete data—data that could potentially take on only a countable set of values, such as the integers, and which are not infinitely ...
.
Modelling is generally broken down into several steps:
* Making assumptions about the data: The modeller decides what is influencing the data and what can be safely ignored.
* Making equations to fit the assumptions.
* Solving the equations.
* Verifying the results: Various statistical tests are applied to the data and the model and compared.
* If the model passes the verification progress, putting it into practice.
* If the model fails the verification progress, altering it and subjecting it again to verification; if it persists in fitting the data more poorly than a competing model, it is abandoned.
External links
Definition by the UK National Physical Laboratory
Applied mathematics
{{Mathapplied-stub