Simulation: An introduction to the idea

New opportunities for building computational simulation models have multiplied over the last few years, inspired partly by extraordinary advances in computing hardware and software and partly by influences from other disciplines, particularly physics, artificial intelligence and theoretical biology. Since the mid-1980s there has been rapidly increasing interest world-wide in the possibility of using simulation in sociology and the other social sciences as sociologists have realised that it offers the possibility of building models which are process-oriented and in which some of the mechanisms of social life can be explicitly represented. This introductory chapter will explore the potential of computer simulation for the study of science by describing some recent examples, chosen to give a flavour of the range of simulation methods and the variety of research areas which are now using simulation as a research tool.