Scientists and engineers make models of anything they want to test. The process of doing experiments on models is known as simulation. Simulation is the term used for more than a century now. In World War 2, simulation of the atomic bomb was done and its power and effects were calculated.
In automobile business simulation is also used. Now cars have very advanced technology built into it e.g. radars, sensors to detect movement of other obstacles around the car. Before applying any technology to all cars, one technology is first tested through simulation and then if testing is successful then that technology is built into the car.
If a company wants to see how many staff members it needs to handle its customer then the company can do it through simulation. In the simulation, there will be a mockup of the company be made on the computer. Then all the entities like customers, staff and other members of the company are made in the computer. Now the number of customers, number of staff and time is set to test the performance of the company. The computer software will do all the work of simulation with animation. Below is the diagram of the simulation of people in the café of the company.
There are some other examples of simulation also like a simulation of characters done in movies, video games, animation videos, TV advertisements, simulation of climate changes. All these types of simulation need a high level of the computer. If you want to test simulation of war between countries then it needs very high-speed computer i.e. supercomputer. The supercomputer will simulate the war and give the result of the loss of people and damage done during the war.
In video games, we can see images of people that look similar to real people. This is done with animation software. In games, all the characters are made and then are simulated so that it looks and behave exactly like in reality.
New pilots are not given real airplanes to drive. They are first given a simulated airplane that not exists. The simulated airplane has a screen that looks the same as a real airplane and all the controls of airplanes are same also. After the new pilot gets fully trained then he is given permission to drive the real airplane.
Simulation gives us an inexpensive way of testing systems. Sometimes making a test on the real object is dangerous so we use simulation to test the behavior of an object in different scenarios.
In stock market simulation is also used. Every stock broker company has its own software to buy and sell stocks on the stock exchange. In that software, we can simulate profit and loss of shares also. New customers are given access to software and also given virtual cash that they can use to test software. This is done with simulation i.e. it is simulating the sale or purchase of real stocks. But in reality, it is just for the purpose of training or experiment.
Doctors also use simulation to test different medicines and to detect different diseases in patients. This is mostly done with a computer screen and the tiny device inserted into the patient body. As computers are used in all the fields of life so it is making our life easier and it is also very useful for simulating and testing different aspects of our life.