Coated and Uncoated Models; What is the Difference? An Odyssey in Ten Parts

Abstract : The advent of computers with super memories and manipulative capabilities led to several all-purpose computer programs that can extensively estimate the responses of externally driven complex dynamic systems. The estimates are computed with relative ease and are richly displayed. In these all-purpose computer programs an attempt is made a priori to achieve one-to-one correspondence with data derived off fully fledged dynamic systems. This is the good news. The bad news is that often enough the results issued by these computer programs are difficult to interpret and diagnose. Indeed, the discrepancies between data taken off fully fledged dynamic systems and the corresponding results issued by the all-purpose computer programs are often not amenable to causes and assignments. To subdue some of the bad news, it helps to construct and analyze simpler dynamic systems that are subjected to simpler sets of external drives. In this endeavor, the comparison between data and results are sought on the basis of phenomenological correspondence, notwithstanding that some significant features that are exhibited by the data derived off dynamic systems may not necessarily partake in this phenomenological correspondence. The phenomenological correspondence is often derived from fully fledged dynamic systems that are generic models of the actual dynamic systems.