One of my favorite radio shows is Radiolab, which always presents the listener with an interesting scientific question from across the board. In a recent rerun, Radiolab discussed Stochasticity.
Assume the following thought experiment: The Earth circling the Sun at a cozy distance of 1 AU (around 150 million km) suddenly stands still and doesn’t move anymore. The only force left on the Earth is now the Sun’s gravitational pull. The question we want to answer here is: How long will it take for the Earth to crash into the Sun?
Sooner or later, most scientist have to automate certain tasks. It is generally advisable to leave such repetitive things that can be automated to the computer. Here we have a look at tools that might help with this task.