ABSTRACT
Astrophysics is a particularly fruitful field for the application of computer simulation because the systems under study, stars and galaxies, are not amenable to controlled laboratory experiment. With typical time and distance scales of 108 years and 1023 m, astrophysicists and astronomers can only act as passive observers of the systems they study. The only way experiments can be performed is by simulating the system on the computer and performing experiments with that simulation.
