Physical Model

A physical model is used in various contexts to mean a physical representation of some thing. That thing may be a single item or object a large system.The geometry of the model and the object it represents are often similar in the sense that one is a rescaling of the other; in such cases the scale is an important characteristic. However, in many cases the similarity is only approximate or even intentionally distorted. Sometimes the distortion is systematic with e.g. a fixed scale horizontally and a larger fixed scale vertically when modelling topography of a large area.

Physical models in science and technology allow us to simulate or visualize something about the thing it represents. A model in this sense is a physical object such as an architectural model of a projected building or an existing one.