[williamstein]

Math is often much more fun and compelling for some people when you both theoretically prove something works and then also convince yourself of the same thing via a numerical experiment. I’m pretty good at math proofs (pure math PhD, wrote some books and papers), but I still love to do numerical experiments. It’s fun, and you also set yourself up to be able to easily ask different questions that may be very hard to answer theoretically.

[foobarian]

For me it's a case of, "see, what I do is powerful after all!" after a 5 minute analytical proof matches 3 hours of simulation work. :-)