Computer Simulation: a Tutorial

Simulation has been described by Shannon
¹
as "the process of designing a computerized model of a system (or process) and conducting experiments with this model for the purpose either of understanding the behavior of the system or of evaluating various strategies for the operation of the system." It follows from this definition that we must concern ourselves with a precise formulation of the system to be studied, translation of this formulation into a computer program, and interpretation and use of the simulation results.