Computer simulation (nonfiction)

Karman vortex.

A computer simulation is a simulation (nonfiction), run on a single computer, or a network of computers, to reproduce behavior of a system.

Description

The simulation uses an abstract model (a computer model), or a computational model.

Computer simulations have become a useful part of mathematical modeling of many natural systems in physics (computational physics), astrophysics, climatology, chemistry and biology, human systems in economics, psychology, social science, and engineering.

Simulation of a system is represented as the running of the system's model. It can be used to explore and gain new insights into new technology and to estimate the performance of systems too complex for analytical solutions.

Computer simulations vary from computer programs that run a few minutes to network-based groups of computers running for hours to ongoing simulations that run for days.

The scale of events being simulated by computer simulations has far exceeded anything possible (or perhaps even imaginable) using traditional paper-and-pencil mathematical modeling.

Fiction cross-reference

• The Boxes - related to computer simulations.

Nonfiction cross-reference

• Algorithm (nonfiction)
• Computational model (nonfiction)
• Computational physics (nonfiction)
• Computer (nonfiction)
• Abstract model (nonfiction)
• Computer model (nonfiction)
• Dynamical simulation (nonfiction)
• Mathematical model (nonfiction)
• Model (nonfiction)
• Numerical analysis (nonfiction)
• Simulation (nonfiction)

External links

• Computer simulation @ Wikipedia