Spherical Cows

Spherical cow is a standard utilized to create highly complex scientific models of reality. The use of spherical cows in modeling comes about from their longstanding love/hate relationship with theoretical physicists and the fact that the physicists couldn't retain more attractive (and human) models.	A spherical cow jumps over the moon.

Precipitating incident

In early summer, 1996, milk production at a Wisconsin dairy farm was very low. The farmer wrote to the state university, asking help from academia. A multidisciplinary team of professors was assembled, headed by a theoretical physicist, and two weeks of intensive on-site investigation took place. The scholars then returned to the university, notebooks crammed with data, and gathered a national convention in Madison to address the problem. A few weeks later, the physicist phoned the farmer, "I've got the answer," he said, "But it only works when you consider spherical cows in a vacuum. . . ." Subsequent events are shrouded in neuralized mystery, but we do know that the first lunar migratory flight of spherical cows launched from the farm a few weeks later.

Spherical cow modeling is intended to demonstrate that physicists will often reduce a problem to its simplest form in order to make calculations more feasible, even though such simplification may hinder the model's application to reality. In the case of the farm analysis, this reduction breached the trust between the physicists and the cows, resulting in the hushed up incidents at CERN and NORAD and our current shaky armistice with the bovine fleet that defends the lunar migration paths.

Combat and defense

Spherical cows appear slow moving, however through internal redistribution of their mass, they can turn on a dime and pose an instant threat to aggressors. Given a few seconds to begin bouncing, a spherical cow can become a truly awesome destructive force possessing enough mass to flatten a grown man with the finality of a meteor strike. Standard FPS strafing tactics are effective in single combat, if one is careful to note that the cows can not change direction in mid-air and time evasive maneuvers appropriately.

Note: Cow tipping is ineffective. And avoid herds at all times.

Vacuum operations

Spherical cows are extremely dangerous in a vacuum environment, as they require no air and their style of locomotion is well adapted to low- and zero-gravity conditions. A single enraged spherical cow can destroy an entire lunar outpost.

Hunting season

Spherical cows migrate to Lunar pastures during Autumn and back to Wisconsin in the Spring; a pattern indistinguishable from that followed by the elderly human population of the state. While Spherical cows are reputed to be excellent game animals, few licenses are issued due to the deadly nature of the prey. Properly trained and certified hunters can apply to bag two cows per winter season and are restricted to hunting on one of the two original Lunar reservations set aside for this purpose. The cows themselves have no bag limits and frequently take out several hunters at once.

See also

• Sphere
• Cow
• Approximation
• Cow Tipping
• Two Cows

External links

• NASA:Exploration of the Universe Division - Supernova models as spherical cows
• Hubble Heritage Gallery Page – related history from Space Telescope Institute
• Ingrid Kallick – Graphic Goddess of the Spherical Cow