Continuous Systems Modelling Education – Causal or Acausal Approach?

The paper deals with some important aspects of continuous systems modelling education. Namely the traditional approach is based on block oriented schemes in which causal relations play an important role. However this causality is artificially generated in order to fulfil appropriate conditions for simulation on conventional sequential computers. Fortunately new concepts which are based on object oriented approaches, physically oriented connections and algebraic manipulation enable so called acausal modelling. Both approaches have to be educated and are presented on an example. Advantages and disadvantages are discussed.