Occam’s Razor

We are to admit no more causes of natural things (as we are told by Newton) than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their ap­pearances. This central theme is basic to the pursuit of science, and goes back to the principle known as Occam’s razor: “if presented with a choice between indifferent alternatives, then one ought to select the simplest one.” Unconsciously or explicitly, informal applications of this principle in science and mathematics abound.

LI, Ming and VITÁNYI, P. M. B., 1997. An introduction to Kolmogorov complexity and its applications. 2nd ed. New York: Springer. Graduate texts in computer science. ISBN 978-0-387-94868-3, p. v.