This is a note on the course philosophy. For a more pragmatic view, see the syllabus.

(The course FLYER can be viewed here)

This course is really two courses in one. On one hand it can be viewed simply as an introduction to a few, out of a large array, of numerical modeling techniques that are being used in the Geosciences. Indeed, if nothing else you will come out of the course with a basic knowledge of using the Finite Difference technique to solve some slightly difficult problems, along with a nodding acquaintance with the Finite Element method and maybe some others, such as Cellular Automata. However, the use of models is so ubiquitous and widespread that there is no hope in learning even a fraction of the methods in use. As a result you will not really become conversant in modeling in the broad sense.

Therefore, we will also be attempting to study modeling at a meta-level. There are universalities to modeling, and indeed, much of modeling turns out to border on the philosophical, or at least sociological, and involves such questions as “should we model” or “can we ever prove or validate our work”. This second subject of the course will be specifically designed to help you judge talks and papers that use models that you don’t really know or understand. This second objective is, in my opinion, hugely important, since well over ½ the talks that I hear, or the papers that I read, contain models or modeling usage that is just plain wrong. I hope that you will reach the stage this term where you will be able to recognize and identify some of the flaws that are often lurking in talks and papers.