`Space Simulator`

[blobrana]

Hum,
check out the `Space Simulator` ; a 294-node Beowulf cluster with theoretical peak performance just below 1.5 teraflops, (trillions of floating point operations per second).

Each processing node looks much like a collection of boring bog-standard computers you would find at PCWorld; consisting of a Pentium 4 processor, 1 gigabyte of 333 MHz SDRAM, an 80 gigabyte hard drive and a gigabit Ethernet card. Each individual node cost less than $1,000 and the entire system cost under $500,000.

The Space Simulator has been used almost continuously for theoretical astrophysics simulations since it was built, and has spent much of the past year calculating the evolution of the Universe. The first results of that work were recently presented at a research conference in Italy .
In addition to simulating the structure and evolution of the Universe, the Space Simulator has been used to study the explosions of massive stars and to help understand the X-ray emission from the centre of our galaxy, and no doubt playing Quake.
(as if that would help them)

More info here...



[well , i thought it looked cool]

[Im>bE]

To accurately simulate a universe,
it would have to have variables of
-position
-velocity
-direction
of all photons, electrons, neutrons, positrons,
and possibly any other small things flying around.

On top of that,
the simulator would have to know EXACTLY
what happens when these particles crash into eachother.
What they produce,
and what direction and velocity the end particle(s)
will get in the process.

This is neccesary
because everything that happens,
affects, and thereby make, the future.

Needless to say,
we can probably not make even a 90% accurate simulator
within the next 50 years.



Using piss'ees wont make it easier ofcourse.

[jeffimix]

Maybe they only do part of the universe.... the weather man is still far too often wrong...

[BigBenAussie]

Pity they couldn't be sold a bunch of uA1s. :-)

Although the memory is slower on the A1 right?

[gizz72]

Greetings,

I wonder if it is ever possible to cluster a bunch of Amigas in one rack. That would be awesome! Simulating space is like playing Frontier. Only better, no doubt. :-)

Also, if the japanese would miniturize such set-up that would fit into one mainframe, Advance Artificial Intelligence would not be far behind.

[Argo]

Yes, that's nice. But can it run UAE? :-D

[Robert17]

Just think of the power they would save if they were all Pegasos/A1s...

[weirdami]

@Im>bE

The collision of one photon with another produces two photons. Neat, huh?

You wouldn't need to know everything to simulate the universe, just parts. That's why it's called a simulation. If it was perfect, it'd have followers and zealots. :-) You could really just get away with the broad effects of stuff that happens. Why simulate the orbits of our solar system exactly, when you can just worry about the total effect all the orbits have on the stuff a few light years away. Go far enough away and you can estimate an entire solar system's influence on the universe as a point.

What happens anywhere does affect everything else, sure, but not immediately. Light or gravity from anything happening 15 billion light years away will take 15 billion years to affect anything here. If you limit the scope of the simulation to only certain parts and eras, the stuff you need to worry about is smaller.

Physics is neat. :-D