would-be worlds

How simulation is changing the frontiers of science

in ther ever-changing world of science, new instruments often lead to momentous discoveries that dramatically transform our understanding. Today, with the aid of a bold new instrument, scientists are embarking on a scientific revolution as profound as that inspired by Galileo's telescope.

Out of the bits and bytes of computer memory, researchers are fashioning silicon surrogates of the real world - elaborate "artificial worlds" - that allow them to perform experiments that are too impractical, too costly, or, in some cases, too dangerous to do "in the flesh"