Early research in sandpiles was aimed at investigating the behavior of real world sandpiles using computer simulation. Similar types of models have been used in a wide range of applications such as weather prediction, earthquake prediction, etc.
While similar research in this continues, the mathematical models used in these simulations have become interesting in their own right. Several interesting properties of the models have been shown to exist.
The sandpile simulation consists of a graph, some amount of sand to be
distributed accross the graph, and a set of rules that state how sand
can be distributed.