For years, cosmologists have been racing each other to develop ever more sophisticated and realistic models of the evolution of the Universe. The competition has just become considerably stiffer. Since the first 'analogue' simulation by Erik Holmberg,who used the inverse-square law of light to mimic gravity, numerical cosmology has made remarkable progress: abstract particles and digital supercomputers have now replaced light bulbs and photometers as tools for measuring gravitational forces. But the ultimate dream of every cosmologist — to create a realistic model of the whole Universe inside a computer — remains elusive. The Universe is just too complicated and too large for even the fastest supercomputers.
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