News tagged with computer simulations

Capturing planets

(Phys.org) -- The discovery of planets around other stars has led to the realization that alien solar systems often have bizarre features - at least they seem bizarre to us because they were so unexpected. ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 22, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (4) | comments 5 | with audio podcast

Sophisticated simulations predict future warming

The chances of our planet being hit by a global warming of 3 degrees Celsius by 2050 is as likely as it being hit by an increase of 1.4 degrees, new research shows. Presented in the journal Nature Geoscience, the British study ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created May 22, 2012 | popularity 3.8 / 5 (11) | comments 56

Scientists sound acid alarm for plankton

The microscopic organisms on which almost all life in the oceans depends could be even more vulnerable to increasingly acidic waters than scientists realised, according to a new study.

Space & Earth / Environment

created May 15, 2012 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (10) | comments 7 | with audio podcast

Questions about incredible sea turtle migration answered

Immediately after emerging from their underground nests on the lush beaches of eastern Florida, loggerhead sea turtles scramble into the sea and embark alone on a migration that takes them around the entire ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created May 15, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

RNA reactor could have served as a precursor of life

(PhysOrg.com) -- Nobody knows quite how life originated on Earth, but most scientists agree that living cells did not abruptly appear from nonliving cells in a single step. Instead, there were probably a series ...

Physics / General Physics

created Jul 11, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (27) | comments 103 | with audio podcast feature

Physicists investigate fate of five-dimensional black strings

(PhysOrg.com) -- While black holes in four-dimensional space-time are stable and can persist for a long time, their higher-dimensional analogues are usually unstable. One such theoretical analogue is a five-dimensional ...

Physics / General Physics

created Sep 10, 2010 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (36) | comments 14 | with audio podcast feature

How nature shapes the birth of stars

(Phys.org) -- Using state of the art computer simulations, a team of astronomers from the University of Bonn in Germany have found the first evidence that the way in which stars form depends on their birth ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 11, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (6) | comments 6 | with audio podcast

Simulated skiers reveal mountain traffic jams

Millions of skiers and snowboarders escape to the mountains every winter, but some everyday stresses -- like traffic jams -- are unavoidable even on the slopes. In plenty of time to prepare for next season, ...

Physics / General Physics

created May 09, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Computer simulations suggest graphynes may be even more useful than graphene

(PhysOrg.com) -- The past several years have seen a virtual explosion in the amount of research dedicated to graphene and as a result there has been a nearly constant stream of news pertaining to new discoveries ...

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

created Mar 05, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (10) | comments 26 | with audio podcast report

Nuclear fusion simulation shows high-gain energy output

(PhysOrg.com) -- High-gain nuclear fusion could be achieved in a preheated cylindrical container immersed in strong magnetic fields, according to a series of computer simulations performed at Sandia National ...

Physics / General Physics

created Mar 20, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (43) | comments 120 | with audio podcast

Mysterious electron acceleration explained

A mysterious phenomenon detected by space probes has finally been explained, thanks to a massive computer simulation that was able to precisely align with details of spacecraft observations. The finding could ...

Physics / General Physics

created Feb 27, 2012 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (12) | comments 18 | with audio podcast

A spider web's strength lies in more than its silk

While researchers have long known of the incredible strength of spider silk, the robust nature of the tiny filaments cannot alone explain how webs survive multiple tears and winds that exceed hurricane strength.

Technology / Computer Sciences

created Feb 01, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (11) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Smart, self-healing hydrogels open new possibilities in medicine, engineering

University of California, San Diego bioengineers have developed a self-healing hydrogel that binds in seconds, as easily as Velcro, and forms a bond strong enough to withstand repeated stretching. The material ...

Chemistry / Polymers

created Mar 05, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Bering Strait may be global temperature stabilizer

(Phys.org) -- A diverse group of climate researchers has found after running computer simulations that the strait that separates North America and Russia might be serving as a global temperature stabilizer. ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Apr 10, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (10) | comments 61 | with audio podcast report

Astrophysicists report first simulation to create a Milky Way-like galaxy

(PhysOrg.com) -- After nine months of number-crunching on a powerful supercomputer, a beautiful spiral galaxy matching our own Milky Way emerged from a computer simulation of the physics involved in galaxy ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 29, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (13) | comments 45 | with audio podcast

Computer simulation

A 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.

For more information about Computer simulation, read the full article at Wikipedia.
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