There are three problems to overcome. I need something for quick prototyping. Something I can use to scribble little programs to prove or disprove different ideas. Then I need something to do the heavy lifting. Simulations like these require a lot of calculations and a lot of computer power. And I need something to render the calculations into understandable graphics. Something to convert the numbers into pictures.

So, for prototyping I chose Java. It executes rather slowly but lends itself well to writing small, quick and dirty programs. If you're a Java programmer don't hate me just because I prefer other languages.

For the heavy lifting I chose 'C', the mother tongue. As high level, algebraic languages go it's hard to beat 'C'. It's straight forward, easy to understand and it's fast.

For the graphics .... hmmmm....some of these simulations involve complex surface models in one, two and three dimensions. I didn't want to get bogged down in writing a second rate graphics package for a simulation that probably won't work anyway. I've seen a lot of researchers fail to present their finding effectively because of poor graphics. I wanted something that could produce rich three dimensional images with a minimum of effort. So I chose Povray, a well know and well supported graphics system used by computer artists. I've used this package and I'm comfortable with it.