Computers Simulate Terrorism's Extremes

Computers Simulate Terrorism's Extremes: "washingtonpost.com
Computers Simulate Terrorism's Extremes
At Los Alamos Lab, Devising Responses to Worst-Case Scenarios

By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 4, 2005; A01

LOS ALAMOS, N.M.-- Deep inside the cave-like laboratories of the legendary research center that created the atomic bomb, scientists have begun work on a Manhattan Project of a different sort.
In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, they have been constructing the most elaborate computer models of the United States ever attempted. There are virtual cities inhabited by millions of virtual individuals who go to work, shopping centers, soccer games and anywhere else their real life counterparts go. And there are virtual power grids, oil and gas lines, water pipelines, airplane and train systems, even a virtual Internet.
The scientists build them. And then they destroy them."