Making assumptions and approximations are a critical part of scientific modeling. The real world is very complex, so we are often creating a simplified model to explain, predict, and describe physical phenomena. Assumptions and approximations are a critical part of this process because they highlight what you are considering relevant and what you are considering as unimportant or negligible.

Despite being very important, they are often not talked about in depth or are only mentioned as a side note. So in this class we are explicitly trying to highlight the assumptions part of the model and practice identifying/recognizing the assumptions that we use in our problems. Determining those assumptions and approximations can be very challenging. There is not one right answer because the assumptions are highly context dependent and each problem will take a critical examination of that situations.