What are the core principles of Object-Oriented Programming, and how do they contribute to software design?

The core principles of OOP are encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism. Encapsulation bundles data and methods that operate on the data into a single unit (class). Inheritance enables new classes to inherit properties and behaviors from existing classes, facilitating code reuse. Polymorphism allows objects of different types to be treated as objects of a common superclass, promoting flexibility and extensibility in software design.