Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-x4r87 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T09:23:50.427Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Computer Simulation in the Physical Sciences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2023

Fritz Rohrlich
Fritz Rohrlich*
Affiliation:
Syracuse University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The central claim of this paper is that computer simulation provides (though not exclusively) a qualitatively new and different methodology for the physical sciences, and that this methodology lies somewhere intermediate between traditional theoretical physical science and its empirical methods of experimentation and observation. In many cases it involves a new syntax which gradually replaces the old, and it involves theoretical model experimentation in a qualitatively new and interesting way. Scientific activity has thus reached a new milestone somewhat comparable to the milestones that started the empirical approach (Galileo) and the deterministic mathematical approach to dynamics (the old syntax of Newton and Laplace). Computer simulation is consequently of considerable philosophical interest. In view of further technical developments in the near future, computer experts suggest that we are at present only at the very beginning of this new era.

Type
Part XIII. Computer Simulations in the Physical Sciences
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1990 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1990 , 1990 , pp. 507 - 518
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Binnig, G., Quate, C.F., and Gerber, Ch. (1986), Physical Review Letters, 56:930.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bunge, M. (1964), “Phenomenological Theories”, in The Critical Approach to Science and Philosophy, Bunge, M. (ed.). New York: The Free Press, pp. 234–254.Google Scholar
Burks, A.W. (1966), Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata by von Neumann, John. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Ekeland, I. (1988), Mathematics and the Unexpected. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gaponov-Grekhov, A.V. and Rabinovich, M.I. (1990), “Disorder, Dynamical Chaos, and Structures.” Physics Today, 43: July, 30–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humphreys, P. (1990), ‘The Rational Use of Scientific Thought Experiments”, Colloquium in Honor of Adolf Grünbaum, Pittsburgh, October.Google Scholar
Humphreys, P. (1991) “Computer Simulations:, PSA 1990, Volume II, pp. 497–506.Google Scholar
Kuhn, T.S. (1964/77), “A Function for Thought Experiments”, in L’aventure de la science, Mélanges Alexandre Koyré. Paris: Hermann, pp.307–334. Reprinted in T.S. Kuhn (1977), The Essential Tension, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 240-265.Google Scholar
Landman, U. et. al. (1990), “Atomistic Mechanisms and Dynamics of Adhesion, Nanoindentation, and Fracture”, Science 248: 454–461.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, A.I. (1984), Imagery in Scientific Thought. Boston: Birkhauser.Google Scholar
Naylor, T.H. (1966), Computer Simulation Techniques. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Popper, K.R. (1962), Conjectures and Refutations. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Popper, K.R. (1962), Conjectures and Refutations. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Redhead, M. (1980), “Models in Physics”. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 31: 145–163.Google Scholar
Rugar, D. and Hansma, P. (1990), “Atomic Force Microscopy”. Physics Today October: 23-30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seiden, P.E. and Gerola, H. (1982), “Propagating Star Formation and the Structure and Evolution of Galaxies”. Fundamentals of Cosmic Rays 7: 241–311.Google Scholar
Seiden, P.E. and Schulman, L.S. (1990), “Percolation Model of Galactic Structure”. Advances in Physics 39: 1–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toffoli, T. (1984), “Cellular Automata as an Alternative to (Rather than an Approximation of) Differential Equations in Modeling Physics”. Physica 10D: 117–127.Google Scholar
Ulam, S.M. (1960), A Collection of Mathematical Problems. Interscience Publishers:NY.Google Scholar
Vishniak, G.Y. (1984), “Simulating Physics with Cellular Automata”, Physica 10D: 96–116.Google Scholar
Wolfram, S. (1984), “Universality and Complexity in Cellular Automata”, Physica 10D: 1–35.Google Scholar