Simulation
- Used to study complex systems
- The development of a model of a complex system and the experimental manipulation to observe results
- System
- Groups of objects interacting in some way
- Dynamic, interactive, and complicated
- Model
- An abstraction of a real system
- Representation of the objects within a system and the rules that govern those objects
- Can be a continuous or discrete-event simulation
- Continuous
- Time is continuous
- Changes are expressed in terms of a set of differential equations reflecting the relationships among the set of characteristics
- Characteristics are chosen to model the system must be understood with mathematics
- Frequently used by engineers and economists
- Discrete-event
- Made up of entities, attributes, and events
- Entity
- Some object in the real system
- Event
- Interaction between entities