Surrogate model

Hello there! So, have you ever played with toy cars or dolls? Imagine you have a toy car, and you want it to go faster or slower but you don't want to change anything about the car itself. Instead, you make a smaller toy car that looks and acts like the original car, but you can control it to make it go faster or slower. This smaller toy car is like a "Surrogate" or substitute for the original car.

Similarly, in the scientific world, sometimes we want to find out how something works or what could happen if we make some changes, but it is too complicated or time-consuming to directly test it. That is when we use a surrogate model.

A surrogate model is a simplified representation of the complicated thing that we want to study. It can be a computer program or a physical experiment that can mimic the behavior of the original thing, but it is much easier and faster to work with. We can use the surrogate model to make predictions or test different scenarios without actually doing the complicated thing.

For example, let's say we want to design a race car but building and testing different versions of the car on an actual track would be too expensive and take too long. We can create a computer model that simulates the car's behavior and performance on the track. We can then make changes to the model and test how these changes would affect the actual car's performance. The computer model is a surrogate model that saves time and money without risking the real cars.

In summary, a surrogate model is a simpler and easier-to-use substitute for a complicated thing. It helps scientists and engineers make predictions, test different scenarios, and gain insight into the behavior of the original thing without having to do the complicated thing itself.