Historically, simulations have tended to be narrowly focused on a single domain within a single field. A major factor in this has been the availability of adequate computer processing capabilities. Today, while computing power is still an issue in many fields such as quantum chemistry, advances in hardware and software have greatly reduced it in many others. For example:

Multiphysics treats simulations that involve multiple physical models. For example, combining chemical kinetics and fluid mechanics or combining finite elements with molecular dynamics. Multiphysics typically involves solving coupled systems of partial differential equations.

Wikipedia

Today I attended a webinar on Multiphysics Simulations for Electrical Engineers. I think they’ll have the video up in a day or so but the slides are online now. One slide points out that:

• “Single physics”approach is limited since no phenomenon is isolated

• Today’s engineering challenges demand that multiphysics be addressed

An awesome introductory CD is available from COMSOL, the sponsors of this webinar. Simulations in the context of Rhythmeering will need to blur the boundries even further to support other sciences, art, law and business processes. Within each of these fields a body of math will be required to drive the simulation. This math will typically be in the form of the same partial differential equations COMSOL Multiphysics uses because the heat equation has many applications such as the Black-Scholes equation used for pricing financial derivatives. Rhythmeering looks to unify simulations for all fields, in the same way multiphysics does for engineering.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 28th, 2007 at 4:14 pm and is filed under Simulations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.