Computer simulation
hideA computer simulation, a computer model or a computational model is a computer program, or network of computers, that attempts to simulate an abstract model of a particular system. Computer simulations have become a useful part of mathematical modeling of many natural systems in physics (computational physics), chemistry and biology, human systems in economics, psychology, and social science and in the process of engineering new technology, to gain insight into the operation of those systems, or to observe their behavior.
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 the traditional paper-and-pencil mathematical modeling: over 10 years ago, a desert-battle simulation, of one force invading another, involved the modeling of 66,239 tanks, trucks and other vehicles on simulated terrain around Kuwait, using multiple supercomputers in the DoD High Performance Computer Modernization Program; a 1-billion-atom model of material deformation (2002); a 2.64-million-atom model of the complex maker of protein in all organisms, a ribosome, in 2005; and the Blue Brain project at EPFL (Switzerland), began in May 2005, to create the first computer simulation of the entire human brain, right down to the molecular level.
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News tagged with computer simulations
Ultra-Powerful Laser Reproduces How Star's Jets Travel through Interstellar Space
Nov 20, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A multi-trillion-watt laser at the University of Rochester has simulated a stellar jet -- an outpouring of matter from a fledgling star -- with unprecedented realism.
Nothing But Net: The Physics of Free-Throw Shooting
Nov 04, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Pay attention, Shaq: Two North Carolina State University engineers have figured out the best way to shoot a free throw - a frequently underappreciated skill that gets more important as the ...
Laser-plasma accelerators ride on Einstein's shoulders
Nov 02, 2009 |
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Using Einstein's theory of special relativity to speedup computer simulations, scientists have designed laser-plasma accelerators with energies of 10 billion electron volts (GeV) and beyond. These systems, ...
Building Planet Earth
Oct 22, 2009 |
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A new study shows how rocky planets are formed from the manic swirl of gas and dust that surround a young star, and determines what chemical building blocks are used to construct the planets. Understanding ...
Ancient Flying Pterosaur Also Sailed Seas (w/ Video)
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Oct 19, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Tapejara was an excellent flyer that also had an innate nautical knowledge of sailing.
The Fall of the Maya: 'They Did it to Themselves'
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Oct 07, 2009 |
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For 1200 years, the Maya dominated Central America. At their peak around 900 A.D., Maya cities teemed with more than 2,000 people per square mile -- comparable to modern Los Angeles County. Even in rural areas ...
Models begin to unravel how single DNA strands combine
Nanotechnology / Bio & Medicine
Oct 05, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Using computer simulations, a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers has identified some of the pathways through which single complementary strands of DNA interact and combine to form the double ...
Celebs spawn copycat suicides, study confirms
Sep 30, 2009 |
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Dr Alex Mesoudi, from Queen Mary's newly established Research Centre for Psychology, has found evidence that the increasing reach and influence of the media, combined with a growing number of people assigned celebrity status, ...
A molecular search for happier skin
Sep 08, 2009 |
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Leeds scientists are using the most sophisticated techniques to tackle a question almost as old as mankind itself - what makes skin feel good, and why?
Arctic at warmest levels in 2,000 years or more
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Sep 03, 2009 |
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Arctic temperatures in the 1990s reached their warmest level of any decade in at least 2,000 years, new research indicates. The study, which incorporates geologic records and computer simulations, provides ...
New study will contribute to better understanding of nuclear ignition
Aug 31, 2009 |
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As the nation's nuclear weapons are aging (think the beginning of the Cold War), the U.S. government is turning to researchers and scientists at universities such as UC San Diego to figure out safe and reliable ...
Is the Milky Way doomed to be destroyed by galactic bombardment? Probably not
Aug 31, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- As scientists attempt to learn more about how galaxies evolve, an open question has been whether collisions with our dwarf galactic neighbors will one day tear apart the disk of the Milky ...
Milk drinking started around 7,500 years ago in central Europe
Aug 28, 2009 |
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The ability to digest the milk sugar lactose first evolved in dairy farming communities in central Europe, not in more northern groups as was previously thought, finds a new study led by UCL (University College ...
NASA expands high-end computing system for climate simulation
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Aug 24, 2009 |
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NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., made available to scientists in August the first unit of an expanded high-end computing system that will serve as the centerpiece of a new climate simulation ...
Mathematicians set world record in packing puzzle
Aug 12, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Finding the best way to pack the greatest quantity of a specifically shaped object into a confined space may sound simple, yet it consistently has led to deep mathematical concepts and practical ...
