Pythia

Pythia commonly refers to the Oracle of Delphi in ancient Greece, where the Pythia was the high priestess at the Temple of Apollo. She served as the medium through which the god Apollo was believed to speak, delivering prophecies that were interpreted by a council of priests. The oracular responses were sought by individuals and Greek city-states for guidance on matters ranging from politics to warfare. The name Pythia is linked to Delphi's association with the dragon Python, slain by Apollo; the term is also related to the Pythian Games and to the designation “Pythian” used for things associated with Delphi.

In modern science, Pythia is the name of a widely used Monte Carlo event generator for high-energy physics. Pythia simulates particle collisions and subsequent processes such as parton showers, hadronization, and particle decays, producing synthetic data that can be compared with experimental results. Pythia originated in the late 20th century within the PYTHIA project and has evolved through several major versions, including Pythia 6 (Fortran) and Pythia 8 (C++). It is maintained by the PYTHIA development team and is widely used by collider experiments and phenomenology studies, typically in conjunction with external event record formats (such as HepMC) and analysis tools.