Joint Meeting
Australian Institute of Physics
and
The Royal Society of NSW
Applications of High Performance Computing and Communication
Bernard PailthorpeDepartment of Applied Physics, University of Sydney,
Sydney VisLab, and San Diego Supercomputer Center, USA.
Date: Tuesday 8th September
Location: Lecture Theatre 8, School of Physics, University of Sydney
ABSTRACT
The supercomputer is a new scientific instrument. We are at only the beginning of its contributions to a revolution in the way we view, undertake and communicate science and technology. The US National Science Foundation's High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) Program, initiated in the 1980s, has provided a worldwide stimulus. Supercomputers are well integrated into the design cycle in many industries, ranging from aerospace and automobiles through to pharmaceuticals. Now HPCC is acknowledged to be an enabling technology which underpins international competitiveness in scientific, industrial and commercial enterprises.
In the 1990s the paradigm has extended beyond simulations and design, to include studies of very large and disparate databases - this presents many intellectual, business and social opportunities. Associated developments in Interaction Environments and Collaborative Virtual Environments are poised to open up new frontiers in research and in the workplace.
Some examples of the so-called Grand Challenges of Computational Science and Engineering will be presented. Then, some examples recent Australian HPC will be presented illustrated by videotaped animations.
Report on the Lecture
by Dr Michael Lake,Hon.Sec., RSNSW
This 1076th General Monthly Meeting of the Royal Society of NSW was a joint meeting with the AIP.
Dr Pailthorpe drew our attention to the fact that since 1940 our ability to physically travel has increased a thousand fold yet in the same period our ability to process data on a computer has increased a trillion fold. This prodigious increase in computational power has opened up new areas of research and scientists are now viewing the computer as a new scientific instrument similar to what the telescope was like in the 1600's when Galileo first turned the new instrument upon the heavens.
Industry is also benefiting from the new instrument; computer crash testing of motor vehicles leads to better designs for occupant safety and reduced resource usage; modeling how molecules fit into one another can eliminate those structures that are unlikely to be promising new drugs and the simulation of injection moulding decreases the time to market for new products.
The Australian Technology Park at Redfern is at the forefront of assisting Australian industry and Government to utilise supercomputing. High resolution modeling of the weather patterns is now achieving lateral resolutions of 200m and this has been used for such diverse applications as providing detailed wind predictions to yachts in the Sydney-Hobart yacht race, oceanographic currents off the South East coast of Australia to simulating burn-offs for fire hazard reductions. Other, more esoteric applications, include star formation, simulations of star quakes (like earthquakes but on stars) and diffeomorphisms of space.
The computer can also be used to present large quantities of information in ways that allow humans to make sense of the data. A video of the US economy from 1890 to 1995 was shown where US Government Interest Rate movements with time were plotted with respect to three axes of stagflation, depression and boom. The audience could clearly visualise the bust of 1933, the economy then moving to the boom years of 1943 and onwards to the postwar stagflation of 1946.
The evening highlighted the impact that computers have on our modern lives and gave a glimpse of what this new instrument may bring in the hands of our grandchildren in the future.
This lecture was sponsored by The Australian Institute of Physics (NSW Branch) and The Royal Society of NSW.