Talk:Spherical cow

‹See TfM›

Page notability

As I write this, this page has been marked with the notability tag.

I disagree that this concept is not notable enough. I have come across the spherical cow in multiple situations leading me to believe that it is a popular expression among people making theoretical models based on simplified assumptions.

If someone has a source it might be good to add it to the page.

Siker 18:07, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

---

Agreed. I first heard of it as "assume a spherical cat" in the context of any sort of simplified physics model. I came to this page via Google looking for the origin of the original joke. The expression is certainly notable, and worhty of inclusion. --71.5.4.21 01:08, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

---

Thirded. The expression is defintely notable in physics at least. I've heard it many times over the past several years. I was hoping Wikipedia would have the original source. Alas, this article is not very helpful, but it should be improved, not deleted.

As for documenting the fact that it's notable, I'm not sure what to say. I've not typically seen it in anything published. The closest thing I can think of the the blog post that lead me to look up the origins of the phrase on wikipedia: http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/2006/10/mistake-of-week-x-works-on-paper-but.html (bottom of 4th nonquoted paragraph). 129.2.108.76 18:48, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

---

Fourthed. It is a very elegant way to describe what mathematical modeling does. It is no accident that several papers exist using the anology and that in fact a test book on environmentalism exists using this in the title. If a person came across the term in the literature, this entry describes fairly clearly what it is. Of course to the layman however bright, it may just seem wierd. I do ask however that the non-scientific lay person sit back and ask themselves if physicists do occasionally make simplifying approximations because they basically have to do make analysis tractible.

---

Nth'd. The external link to the Nasa article called 'Spherical Cows' should be enough evidence that this is a somewhat popular expression at least in scientific circles. Many of my math professors used this expression (of course when i was in college it was spherical dinosaurs).

---

N+1 (from original author) Amazon finds 80 hits for spherical cow:

Harte, John (1988). Consider a Spherical Cow: A Course in Environmental Problem Solving. University Science Books. ISBN 093570258X.

Harte, John (2001). Consider a Cylindrical Cow: More Adventures in Environmental Problem Solving. University Science Books. ISBN 1891389173.

including usage in the third edition of a very standard graduate physics book

Jackson, John David (1998). Classical Electrodynamics. Wiley. p. 139. ISBN 047130932X.

(it is not in the 2nd edition 1975 nor in the 1962 edition I used as a graduate student at Madison) I have reported the joke more or less as I remember it; there are lots of different versions online (involving economists, mathematicians, etc.). Madison Wisconsin is of course a candidate original source location, but I have not researched the history and can only vouch that I was told the joke there in the late 70s. Since the phrase is commonly used in many books without explanation, I thought it belonged in Wiki

Tkirkman 18:17, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

see also: http://www.scribd.com/doc/6038883/Solved-Problems-of-Jacksons-Electrodynamics-01 page 53 --84.46.43.133 (talk) 21:08, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Joke

Is the joke quoted, from somewhere or by someone? Only it looks like a quote, which should be attributed to someone.Merkinsmum 22:18, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I added the reference.

Image

Is the image even ok to use/not copyrighted?Merkinsmum 22:23, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

---

I made the image; it is not copyrighted and may be used by anybodyTkirkman 18:19, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Brill. I'm glad this page is here, it's an excellent expression (and pic):)Merkinsmum 11:09, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

It appears to me that the Bos taurus sphaericus is transiting the moon, not jumping over it.... -- Coneslayer (talk) 18:59, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

According to the description: The image was created by Ingrid Kallick for the program cover of the 1996 annual meeting of the American Astronomical Association. Is Tkirkman the same as Ingrid Kallik? --Brian Josephson (talk) 09:35, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Sheep version

There's a related joke about the engineer, logician, and physicist travelling through arbitrary sheep country. Engineer says "Look, they have black sheep here." Logician says "They have at least one black sheep here." Physicist says "Consider an infinite plane sheep with a single hair."

John Y (talk) 11:15, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

The sceptic comments: "Well, they have sheep that are black on one side."--Niels Ø (noe) (talk) 11:41, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Covered at Mathematical_joke#Stereotypes_of_mathematicians... -- AnonMoos (talk) 01:10, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Stub?

The article is currently marked as a stub: "you can help Wikipedia by expanding it". I suggest removing this tag. While I agree with everyone above that this article deserves inclusion, it's hard to see how there's much more to say. Perhaps more references could be added, but essentially the article is complete — short and sweet. Not every topic needs a long article. Other opinions? 158.109.1.15 (talk) 19:04, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree.--Noe (talk) 21:02, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, no one's disagreed, so I've removed the stub tag. 86.0.202.218 (talk) 19:25, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Radiation

I prefer the longer punchline: Assume a spherical cow, radiating milk isotropically... -- Coneslayer (talk) 14:46, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

• So do I! Unfortunately variants are already covered, though I wish this was the most common punchline because it significantly enhances an already funny joke. Eutactic (talk) 04:14, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Background info needed

This page would probably be difficult for anyone who didn't study applied mechanics at school... is there some wikipedia article we can link to which describes the smooth planes, rigid levers, massless inextenisble ropes, frictionless pulleys and all the other favourite characters from the math book which this joke lampoons? 78.86.37.93 (talk) 19:49, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

There's a reasonably good introduction in this article: https://www.wired.com/2011/02/what-is-up-with-the-spherical-cow/ Aliza250 (talk) 03:14, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

What it "lampoons" are the simplifications and idealizations of a typical undergraduate physics unit. For example, students taking a first course in mechanics are taught the basic rules of an earthbound laboratory chock full of frictionless, perfectly elastic, infinitely rigid objects in a perfect vacuum. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.215.115.31 (talk) 21:53, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

In school, our chemistry master used to joke about 'a gas-tight yet weightless and perfectly frictionless piston'. Inspired by this description, I dreamt up the rhythmic extension: 'a gas-tight yet weightless and perfectly frictionless piston in cylinder'. --Brian Josephson (talk) 09:50, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

similar "aproximations" in other languages

i know, that in russia (and in most ex-ussr space) the most common term for bad aproximation is "spherical horse in vacum". the source of this term is (at least usually is mentioned as) the following joke : one rich person involved in hippodrome betting asks 3 scientists - a mathematican, a biologist and a physicist - to find some ways how to predict which horse is the best. he grants one million $US to each of scientists and one year to solve the problem. after one year of research mathematican gives back half of the summ to the requester and tells, that he has created a well working statistical scheme giving good chance of prediction based on previous run results. biologist tells, that based on information on particular horses parents, how it has been fed, and nd how it has been trained, he can find out what is the maximum speed the horse can achieve. physicist states, that he needs a lab of 30 people, 50.000.000 $ more and 10 more years, to extend the research onhis theory, that at the moment basically describes only spherical horses in vacum. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.237.143.219 (talk) 22:04, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

That is the variant I heard (in English) -it's much funnier, IMHO, than the cow/milk angle. Happily, I found it on BoingBoing and have added a mention. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 18:56, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Looking at it again, I think the joke's already presented via the Russian angle, so I've removed the BoingBoing refer. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:03, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

According to Gorman & others, if I read that correctly, the horse joke was used to demonstrate the simplification problem by David Gooding and the anecdote is attributed originally to Adam Katalsky, in New Scientist, December 19-26, 1992. See Michael E. Gorman; Ryan D. Tweney; David C. Gooding (6 August 2004). Scientific and Technological Thinking. Taylor & Francis. p. 4. ISBN 978-0-8058-4529-7. Retrieved 31 August 2012. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) AgadaUrbanit (talk) 19:45, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Confirmation will come

As with so many physics problem ( black holes etc.) the theoretical physicists are just ahead of their time by assuming the existence of spherical cows and chickens. As usual it takes experimental physicists decades to bring them into evidence. Cows and chickens in this form are just not strongly interactive anymore as they have stopped grazing and pecking almost entirely.

--Christian Benesch (talk) 12:43, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

A 17th century quote

A funny quote regarding same topic, from Hudibras:

• For as whipp'd tops and bandied balls,
• The learned hold, are animals;
• So horses they affirm to be
• Mere engines made by geometry

--CopperKettle 05:26, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

In a vacuum?

Where does the part "in a vacuum" come from? Early versions of the joke (e.g. in Harte's 1988 book Consider a Spherical Cow or Smolin's 1997 book The Life of the Cosmos) present it as an anecdote in which the punchline is that the report produced by the scientists starts with the words "Consider a spherical cow...". Not only is that more funny than the more elaborate version, but also a better illustration of the concept.  --Lambiam 22:31, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

• I believe the vacuum comes from the fact that a vacuum would have no air resistance/friction, which would simplify the calculations even further. 211.30.6.86 (talk) 23:15, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
  • I mean, is there a reliable source that presents the anecdote as involving a vacuum or is that something just lately made up by somebody trying to be even more funny?  --Lambiam 07:30, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
    • The form I learned referred to a spherical cow of uniform density.JDZeff (talk) 21:27, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

"The spherical cow" or just "Spherical cow"?

I put the article "The" at the start of the first sentence, because it really seems very strange to say "Spherical cow is a metaphor". The metaphor is the concept of a spherical cow. Just saying "Spherical cow is a metaphor" makes it sound as if "Spherical cow" is a substance or a proper name. Adding the article makes it clearer. --Slashme (talk) 15:42, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

See also Reasonable person, where the same form is used: the name of the article is "reasonable person", but the lead sentence starts with "The". --Slashme (talk) 15:46, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

And see also Computational biology: Beyond the spherical cow. Note: not "Beyond spherical cow", which would sound as if it was written by a Russian. --Slashme (talk) 15:53, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Popular culture

I have returned the popular culture section with an introduction explaining why such sections can be valuable additions to an article and aren't just fancruft (although, of course, they can easily descend into cesspits of trivia and require oversight).

Pop-culture references have particular value in articles article about relatively obscure topics like this, because they give a measure of its spread and acceptance outside the initial target community. They provide valuable information to new readers: Someone who has never heard of Spherical Cow will understand its impact and spread better when learning that it has been on Big Bang Theory. It's useful information for new readers (although maybe not for those of us already familiar with the concept - but we're not the only readers).

If the joke becomes so widespread that the list grows and grows, then eventually it does become trivia and should be condensed more intelligently, but that's not likely to happen here. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 14:10, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Let's go through the heuristics at WP:POPCRUFT, written so many years ago to allow for objective analysis of whether pop culture references are appropriate:

1. Has the subject acknowledged the existence of the reference? No: there's no definitive source for the original comment, so this can't apply.
2. Have multiple reliable sources pointed out the reference? No: the only reference in the section is routine magazine/blog coverage which doesn't mention the origin of the name at all.
3. Did any real-world event occur because of the cultural element covered by the reference? No: All we have is an unsourced assertion that America's youth is going to learn of "its impact and spread" by watching America's most infamously low-brow science comedy.

Zero out of three. Ordinarily that's grounds for direct removal, and I expect someone will eventually come along and do that again anyway. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:15, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Ah Thumperward, that "low-brow" gives away your real objection to the section: It lowers the dignity of wikipedia! If you don't think millions of people seeing reference to the topic is a "real-world event" then I'm a little puzzled about what is. Having said that, references are, indeed, lacking. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 17:48, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Points to you, sir: The Brass Eye skit had nothing to do with the joke at all, thus demonstrating the value of references. I removed it. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 17:55, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

A few years later, the skit had returned! I have re-squelched it. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 16:08, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Oh, I won't deny that my instinctive dislike of Wikipedia's most widely ridiculed feature was the initial motivator here. Thanks for the references in any case; as I say, there are a set of good heuristics to work from here, so if work is going to be put into bringing said section into line with them I can't complain. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:18, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Illustration

A while back I removed an illustration of a spherical cow superimposed on a moon because I thought it was irrelevant - it doesn't show the concept as described in this article, as a metaphor for scientific disconnect from reality, but seems to be a goofy variant of the "cow jumped over the moon" jingle. Wikipedia isn't a magazine, and illustrations shouldn't be included because they're nice to look at, or break up the text, but only if they provide information.

It has been returned with the comment "The spherical cow picture was nice, and I don't see any harm done by it" - which in my opinion is exactly the wrong way to approach an illustration with a wikipedia article. The anon. editor noted that wikipedia is WP:Not paper and thus we don't need to conserve paper or toner - but we do need to conserve readers' attention.

Rather than remove it, as was my first idea, I wonder if anybody else has an opinion? - DavidWBrooks (talk) 15:00, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

No, wait: I have changed my mind, since checking the wikimedia file on the illustration finds that it was made specficially in reference to modeling for astronomers - I've expanded the caption to explain this. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:39, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Spherical cow. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130104054509/http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/features/topics/snr_group/spherical_cow.html to http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/features/topics/snr_group/spherical_cow.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 07:28, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Homeomorphism

To be sure it's a long way from amphioxus, but most of us since then -- including cows -- have been more nearly homeomorphic to a torus than to a sphere. I think that's part of the gag, at least when a mathematician or a biologist uses it. Gambaguru (talk) 08:06, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm fairly certain that cows being homeomorphic to spheres (or more realistically higher genus surfaces depending on what counts as a hole) is unrelated to the "Spherical Cow" joke. The reason for assuming a spherical cow is for simplification purposes in mathematical modelling. Homeomorphisms have nothing to do with it. CoronalMassAffection (talk) 20:47, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Cows? Or spherical horses?

I've literally never heard of spherical cows before (outside a discussion on bloating...). IMHE, the joke has always been predicting race results on the (more specific, thus funnier) basis of assuming "spherical <animals> running in a vacuum". Which works for horses, but not for cows. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:05, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

I agreed entirely but judging from that book title and that Astronomical Society illustration, it's a thing. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 18:06, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

For simplicity

"A cow, which for simplicity we will take to be spherical". I'm not sure if this has ever been written down but it is pretty realistic in giving a motive for the absurd concept, and might be considered an improvement. But I suppose no good for the article if there isn't a source. I have found though a nice reference which could be added to the article if accompanied by appropriate text, see: https://astrobites.org/2014/10/07/tipping-the-spherical-cow-the-initial-conditions-of-star-formation/. --Brian Josephson (talk) 10:38, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Turing section is not related to the article

I propose the section on the Turing's citation should be removed.

It is only apparently related to the subject by mentioning animals and spherical symmetry. Turing is not discussing at all model conception, nor simplifying hypotheses, he's discussing the possibility of forming a complex animal configuration (like a horse) from an apparently high-symmetry object (a horse's egg cell). Joaosampaio (talk) 10:42, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

That's fine by me; you make a good point. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 11:45, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

Another NASA reference, since the existing one is archived

https://asd.gsfc.nasa.gov/blueshift/index.php/2011/02/11/kojis-blog/

"Even spherical cows have udders" Aliza250 (talk) 03:44, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

That Alan Turing reference

I don't think the Alan Turing reference belongs in this article, despite talking about spherical-ness and horses. It concern a totally different concept about the nature of physical reality; it has nothing to do with a joking reference to the limits of modeling. Here it is:

Alan Turing, in his 1952 paper "The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis", asserted: "a system which has spherical symmetry, and whose state is changing because of chemical reactions and diffusion ... cannot result in an organism such as a horse, which is not spherically symmetrical."[8]

I would like to remove it; what do people think? - DavidWBrooks (talk) 13:47, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Nobody objected, so I've removed it. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 16:15, 29 December 2022 (UTC)