An Introduction to Simulation for Learning

Simulation is all around us. Indeed, most of the objects in our everyday lives have been carefully simulated before being physically produced. Young people spend hours playing video games that vividly reproduce sports or imaginary worlds; doctors practice on virtual patients; molecular process simulations allow pharmaceutical companies to invent new medicines; and realistic simulation models render weather forecasting more precise than ever before. Moreover, managers in multinational companies use simulations to analyze future market scenarios, and simulation is also a recurrent theme in many movies and science fiction novels.