CSC/ECE 506 Fall 2007/wiki1 2 3K8i
What characterizes present-day applications? How much memory, processor time, etc.? How high is the speedup?
Mathematica 6 - does not require parallel processors, but does require significant resources (from the "average" personal computer) - at least 512mb memory.
Some challenges today in keeping the "performance" in HPC (High Performance Computing): http://www.scientificcomputing.com/ShowPR~PUBCODE~030~ACCT~3000000100~ISSUE~0707~RELTYPE~HPCC~PRODCODE~00000000~PRODLETT~C.html All is not well in HPC. There is a tend towards virtualization, or running on virtual machines. One benefit of this approach is that the virtual machine can be seamlessly migrated off its physical host machine. However, in practice there are many challenges related to virtualization. Current designs impose some performance limitations on HPC. <examples, source>
What is petascale computing??
Computational modeling/simulation: why, benefits. in-depth analysis can be performed cheaply on hypothetical designs. There is a direct correlation between computational performance and the problems that can be studied through simulation.
// todo: work on wording below
Some problems are so complex that to solve them would require a significant increase (in some cases by orders of magnitude) in the current computational capabilities of today's computers. These problems are loosely defined as "Grand Challenge Problems." Grand Challenge problems are problems that are solvable, but not in a reasonable period of time on today's computers. Further, a grand challenge problem is a problem of some importance, either socially or economically.
Biology - Human Genome Project (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genome_project) Looks like a "divide and conquer" approach. The genome was broken down into smaller pieces, approximately 150,000 base pairs in length, processed separately, then assembled to form chromosones.
Physics (nuclear technology)
Astronomy
Cognition/Strong AI - the idea that computers can become "self aware." (vs. weak AI who's goal is not so grandiose - Turing test)
Game playing - chess, checkers (Jonathon Schaefer)
Linpack benchmark
Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Performance_Computing