Introduction to Models and Simulations

A computer model is a computer program that attempts to simulate the behavior of a real-life system. The model is an abstraction of the real world system by focusing on the characteristics or behaviors of the system that are relevant to the problem. A simulation is the running of the computer model to analyze and evaluate the performance of a system. It simulates the behavior of the system and attempts to duplicate the behaviors of the system. Modeling can expedite research by allowing scientists to conduct thousands of simulated experiments by physical reproductions at smaller scales to identify solutions to the problem being studied. Computer simulation was first pioneered as a scientific tool in meteorology and nuclear physics in the period following World War II.

Computer simulation has become a useful part of mathematical modeling of many natural systems in physics, astrophysics, chemistry, biology, human systems, economics, psychology, social science, and engineering. Mathematical models present relationships between variables using mathematical equations. Computer simulation is now used in fields as diverse as agriculture, defense, health care, insurance, manufacturing, retail sales, sports, and transportation.

Many simulations have a degree of randomness to them to accommodate for the unpredictability of the situations they're trying to represent. Because of this randomness, we can't trust that a single run of a simulation will act as a gateway to the future; instead, we run the simulation many times to determine the average outcome. 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 reliability and trust people put in computer simulations depend on the validity of the simulation model.

They are useful when changes to the actual system are difficult to implement, involve high costs, or are impractical or impossible. Some examples of computer simulation modeling familiar to most of us include weather forecasting, flight simulators used for training pilots, and car crash modeling.

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