Editing Continuous modelling (section)

{{Short description|Mathematical practice}}
{{One source|date=August 2024}}

'''Continuous modelling''' is the [[mathematical]] practice of applying a [[mathematical model|model]] to [[continuous variable|continuous]] data (data which has a potentially infinite number, and divisibility, of attributes). They often use [[differential equation]]s<ref name="Zill2012">{{cite book|author=Dennis G. Zill|title=A First Course in Differential Equations with Modeling Applications|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pasKAAAAQBAJ&q=%22ordinary+differential%22|date=15 March 2012|publisher=Cengage Learning|isbn=978-1-285-40110-2}}</ref> and are converse to [[discrete modelling]].

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.