Computational science (or scientific computing) is concerned with constructing mathematical models and quantitative analysis techniques and using computers to analyze and solve scientific problems. In practical use, it is typically the application of computer simulation and other forms of computation from numerical analysis and theoretical computer science to problems in various scientific disciplines.
The field is different from theory and laboratory experiment which are the traditional forms of science and engineering. The scientific computing approach is to gain understanding, mainly through the analysis of mathematical models implemented on computers.
Scientists and engineers develop computer programs, application software, that model systems being studied and run these programs with various sets of input parameters. Typically, these models require massive amounts of calculations (usually floating-point) and are often executed on supercomputers or distributed computing platforms.
Numerical analysis is an important underpinning for techniques used in computational science.
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“Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.”
—Jules Henri Poincare (1854–1912)