§ Sciences of the artificial

A bridge under its usual conditions of service, behaves simply as a
relatively smooth level surface. Only when it has been overloaded do we
learn the physical properties of the materials from which it is built.

Ohm's law was suggested to its discovered by its analogy with some simple
hydraulic phenomena.

Why simulation is useful:

• 1. (obvious): while the axioms maybe obvious, their raminifactions may not.

A NASA launched satellite is surely an artificial object, but we usually
do not think of it as simulating the moon; It simply obeys the same laws.

• 2. (subtle) Each layer only depends on an abstraction of the previous. Airplanes don't need the correctness of the Eightfold Way.

Babbage introduced the words "Mill" and "Store"

The focal concern of Economics is allocation of scarce resources.

We can use a theory (say a theory of profit-loss) either positively,
as an explaiation, or normatively, as a way to guide how we should run a
firm.