Simulation

noun
1.
imitation or enactment, as of something anticipated or in testing.
2.
the act or process of pretending; feigning.
3.
an assumption or imitation of a particular appearance or form; counterfeit; sham.
4.
Psychiatry. a conscious attempt to feign some mental or physical disorder to escape punishment or to gain a desired objective.
5.
the representation of the behavior or characteristics of one system through the use of another system, especially a computer program designed for the purpose.
noun
1.
the act or an instance of simulating
2.
the assumption of a false appearance or form
3.
a representation of a problem, situation, etc, in mathematical terms, esp using a computer
4.
(maths, statistics, computing) the construction of a mathematical model for some process, situation, etc, in order to estimate its characteristics or solve problems about it probabilistically in terms of the model
5.
(psychiatry) the conscious process of feigning illness in order to gain some particular end; malingering

simulation sim·u·la·tion (sĭm’yə-lā’shən)
n.

Close resemblance or imitation, as of one symptom or disease by another.

Assumption of a false appearance.

Reproduction or representation, as of a potential situation or in experimental testing.

sim’u·late’ (-lāt’) v.
sim’u·la’tor (-lā’tər) n.
simulation, system
Attempting to predict aspects of the behaviour of some system by creating an approximate (mathematical) model of it. This can be done by physical modelling, by writing a special-purpose computer program or using a more general simulation package, probably still aimed at a particular kind of simulation (e.g. structural engineering, fluid flow). Typical examples are aircraft flight simlators or electronic circuit simulators. A great many simulation languages exist, e.g. Simula.
See also emulation, Markov chain.
Usenet newsgroup: news:comp.simulation.
(1995-02-23)