Monte Carlo method

A 2014 paper recounts how Los Alamos National Laboratory turned to the ENIAC computer in 1947–1948 to run Monte Carlo simulations for nuclear weapons research. The work, tied to figures like Nicholas Metropolis and Stanislaw Ulam, helped establish Monte Carlo methods as a foundation of modern computational science. Readers are sharing and discussing the historical account of this early computing milestone.

A newly circulated paper recounts how Los Alamos scientists turned to the Eniac in 1947–1948 to run some of the earliest Monte Carlo simulations, using the pioneering computer to model nuclear processes through random sampling. The episode is widely seen as a founding moment of computational science, showing how wartime computing hardware was repurposed for peacetime physics research and helped establish a technique now used across finance, engineering and beyond.