Sense Experiences and “Necessary Simulations”: Four Centuries of Scientific Change from Galileo to Fundamental Computer Simulations

Abstract

In this article we consider the impact of fundamental computer simulations in theoretical physics. With the advent of computer technologies, fundamental computer simulations—the practice of translating fundamental scientific laws into computer codes and calculating the behavior of complex systems—have induced remarkable changes in the scientific modus operandi. In this essay, we evaluate whether fundamental computer simulations are sufficiently consequential to have caused a revolutionary occurrence in the scientific outlook.