  This paper briefly reviews the influence that the rapid evolution of computer
power in the last decades has had on turbulence research. It is argued that it
can be divided into three stages. In the earliest (`heroic') one, simulations
were expensive and could at most be considered as substitutes for experiments.
Later, as computers grew faster and some meaningful simulations could be
performed overnight, it became practical to use them as (`routine') as tools to
provide answers to specific theoretical questions. More recently, some
turbulence simulations have become trivial, able to run in minutes, and it is
possible to think of computers as `Monte Carlo' theory machines, which can be
used to systematically pose a wide range of `random' theoretical questions,
only to later evaluate which of them are interesting or useful. Although
apparently wasteful, it is argued that this procedure has the advantage of
being reasonably independence of received wisdom, and thus more able than human
researchers to scape established paradigms. The rate of growth of computer
power ensures that the interval between consecutive stages is about fifteen
years. Rather than offering conclusions, the purpose of the paper is to
stimulate discussion on whether machine- and human-generated theories can be
considered comparable concepts, and on how the challenges and opportunities
created by our new computer `colleagues' can be made to fit into the
traditional research process.
