Numerical Simulation, An Art of Prediction 1

PrefaceA Look at a Technique

“Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future...”Niels Bohr (1885–1962)Danish Physicist

This book on technology, in the sense of a discourse of thought on a technique or an art, focuses on numerical modeling. It is used by engineers in the industry and by many researchers in various scientific fields in order to understand different physical phenomena or to design some of the objects we use every day. It uses the computing power of computers in order to represent the world around us through mathematical models. These consist of equations formulated to report observations. Numerical modeling is the result of a human construction, engaged in its modern form since the 16th Century. At that time, the English physicist Isaac Newton and the German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz developed mathematical concepts that gave access to an abstract representation of movement. In the 21st Century, numerical modeling is part of the family of digital techniques and one of its primary uses concerns mechanics, the science of motion and energy, contributing to understanding the world.

Like all knowledge, mechanics is also an opening, alongside mathematics and the physical sciences, to philosophy or history. In the form of writing with light and movement, it also interacts with the visual arts (cinema, drawing, painting, photography, etc.), to which we will sometimes refer in order to illustrate our point. Mechanics is also a way of thinking that can contribute ...