Definition of

Simulator

Pilot training

The flight simulator is key in the training of a pilot.

A simulator is a machine that reproduces the behavior of a system under certain conditions, which allows the person who must operate said system to train. Simulators usually combine mechanical or electronic parts and virtual parts that help generate an accurate reproduction of reality.

For example: “Before receiving the pilot's license, I have to pass several tests in the flight simulator” , “César is very happy because they installed a car simulator in the shopping center and he will be able to play racing with his friends” , “ “I bought a video game console with a musical simulator.”

Simulators for training

Simulators, therefore, can be used in the professional field or as a leisure and entertainment instrument . In the first case, these devices appear to be essential for the training of people who will have a great responsibility in their charge, since their eventual errors would put the lives of third parties at risk. Thanks to the simulator, these subjects can train until they acquire the experience and skills necessary to perform professionally. If they make mistakes in a simulator, no one will get hurt.

Airplane pilots , racing car drivers and surgeons often practice with simulators. A pilot will use a simulator to experience physical sensations similar to those he will feel in flight, while he must drive a virtual airplane with identical equipment as the real aircraft.

It is important to note that simulators have a series of limits , like any other program, since they are created with well-defined objectives. For example: a flight simulator must accurately represent the controls of one or more ship models, the physics principles related to its operation and its interaction with air, land, water and the buildings and structures that may be found in it. the path; but that does not indicate that the rest of the objects and situations typical of reality are shown in a credible way or that they can be interacted with.

Racing video game

There are simulators that are used for entertainment.

An entertainment

As entertainment, simulators allow you to drive race cars, fly airplanes or control trains in a video game . There are also business simulators or even life simulators (where you have to control a character in their daily life, establish social relationships and even work).

In the field of video games, life simulators have acquired a massive character in recent decades, bringing out of the shadows this type of entertainment that, further back in time, attracted only a very small audience, especially interested in control. of airplanes, tanks and race cars. Nowadays, all of these experiences can be lived more faithfully than ever, but in the case of "alternative lives" titles, their strength lies not in the technical issues but in that they offer an escape from reality.

Risks of a life simulator

The need to be absent for minutes or hours from the tangible world to enter a virtual one, even when in the latter we have the opportunity to talk and interact with other flesh and blood human beings, shows that we are going through a very difficult stage as a species, which We have lost the connection with our nature to the point of no longer enjoying contact with reality as much.

In any case, it is not correct to affirm that a life simulator is something negative for human beings; Like any artistic and technological creation, which offers a dose of fiction combined with interesting achievements in the field of programming, it can be a very peculiar form of entertainment and an experience that gratifies us by allowing us to carry out activities for which our agility is not enough. , or travel to remote parts of the world without leaving our chair. The limit, therefore, is set by the reason that moves us to use it.