Density functional theory (DFT) can be used to determine densities of protons and neutrons making up a nucleus. “If we can determine those densities precisely,” says Witold Nazarewicz, professor of physics at the University of Tennessee, “we can determine the binding energy – the energy stored in the nucleus.” The energy density functional (EDF) in […]
Small team carries large load
Sandia National Laboratories computer scientist Ronald Minnich calls the desktop-extension supercomputing project a large effort with a small team. “To do it with only four other people is pretty unusual,” Minnich says. “I would assume a normal company would allocate at least 10 times as many people to the effort. A lot of things we’ve […]
Computational sciences gets a Harvard institute
Projects such as looking at blood flow in the coronary arteries highlight the value of computation to understand problems in a variety of disciplines, including engineering, medicine, biology, the physical sciences and business. Seeing the need to expand course offerings and graduate student research opportunities, Cherry Murray, dean of the Harvard School of Engineering and […]
The wings that fly FASTER
If FASTER can be considered a jet that speeds global climate modelers to analyze fast physics processes, its wings are the testbed and associated research. The testbed integrates two major “fast” components: a single column model (SCM), a roughly 100 kilometer by 100 km column that complements traditional global climate models; and a numerical weather […]
Winding path leads to fluid career
Paul Fischer can’t remember a time when he wasn’t interested in aeronautical and mechanical engineering. His passion for solving seemingly unsolvable problems came just a bit later. Fischer, now a computational scientist with the Mathematics and Computer Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory, connects that interest to an early fascination with the Apollo space program. […]
Grids grasp at multiple threads to block blackouts
A supercomputer’s unusual qualities make it a good fit with electric system problems.
A well-placed plug for the humble algorithm
The ceremony in the East Room of the White House, where President Obama bestowed the National Medal of Science on Berni Alder last October, represented the public side of the honor. But for Alder the real action occurred after the ceremony, at a White House meeting for invited guests, politicians, family and other Washington dignitaries. […]
Going big to study small
It takes a big computer to model very small things. And, like its namesake state, New York Blue is big. Made up of 36,864 processors, the massively parallel IBM Blue Gene/L is housed at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) on New York’s Long Island, where, among other things, it’s used to model quantum dots, or […]
Putting catalysts on track
Computation and experimentation combine to improve and speed design of useful compounds.
Program may mean cutting the tags
Image searches typically rely on tags – text humans have attached to the pictures to identify objects or people they depict. The algorithms PNNL scientists Rob Farber and Harold Trease have created could largely eliminate tags because they recognize content automatically in massive amount of data. The application could make it as easy to index […]
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