Panel Discussion: On the Unity and Diversity of Computer Simulation

Abstract

The term Computer Simulation subsumes different simulation paradigms, languages and implementation technologies as well as many different application areas each with its own scientific communities. So, there is clearly a lot of conceptual, methodological, technological and application diversity in the area of Computer Simulation. From its start in 1967, the Winter Simulation Conference managed to get four scientific communities involved: computer scientists, electrical engineers, industrial engineers and mathematicians (operations researchers). Only later, in 2011 and 2012, an attempt was made to get environmental and social scientists involved who have been adopting the idea of "individual-based" or "agent-based" simulation. Today, two American, a European and an Asian social simulation conference have been established. How much unity exists between the scientific areas and communities represented by the Winter Simulation Conference? How much unity exists between the scientific areas and communities represented by the newer social science simulation conferences? And how much unity exists between Discrete Event Simulation and the newer forms of social science simulation? These and other questions about the unity and diversity of Computer Simulation have been discussed via email from April 17 to May 17, 2018, by five leading experts: Alexis Drogoul, Paul Fishwick, Nigel Gilbert, Dennis Pegden and Levent Yilmaz, moderated by Gerd Wagner.