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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Practical-Hand203 on 2025-09-22 11:32:06+00:00.

Original Title: TIL the spherical cow is a humorous metaphor originating in theoretical physics. The metaphor refers to some scientific tendencies to develop toy models that reduce a problem to the simplest form imaginable, even if the simplification hinders the model’s application to reality.