Simulation is real

Abstract

Computer simulations of complex processes have always been connected with the real world. Analog computation was invented to solve a problem in the real world. The best known early model of a biological system showed that a computer would be necessary to study real systems. Now that computation power is abundant, the complexity of simulations has risen to provide realism. Connections with the real world are essential in testing the simulation. Also, models are now too large for exhaustive testing, so the researcher has to fall back on the same approach used in investigating the real world: carefully planned experiments.