Simulating the Whole Universe 326
Roland Piquepaille writes "An international group of cosmologists, the Virgo Consortium, has realized the first simulation of the entire universe, starting 380,000 years after the Big Bang and going up to now. In 'Computing the Cosmos,' IEEE Spectrum writes that the scientists used a 4.2 teraflops system at the Max Planck Society's Computing Center in Garching, Germany, to do the computations. The whole universe was simulated by ten billion particles, each having a mass a billion times that of our sun. As it was necessary to compute the gravitational interactions between each of the ten billion mass points and all the others, a task that needed 60,000 years, the computer scientists devised a couple of tricks to reduce the amount of computations. And in June 2004, the first simulation of our universe was completed. The resulting data, which represents about 20 terabytes, will be available to everyone in the months to come, at least to people with a high-bandwidth connection. Read more here about the computing aspects of the simulation, but if you're interested by cosmology, the long original article is a must-read."
Obligatory question (Score:4, Funny)
Dr. Mike Johnson claims dibs on God (Score:5, Funny)
Great, so maybe. . . (Score:3, Funny)
I can search it to find out where I left my cell phone last night.
bittorrent (Score:2, Funny)
Why bother? (Score:5, Funny)
From the library reference desk (Score:5, Funny)
Uh yes, but it's being used right now.
Imagine? .-) (Score:3, Funny)
Hit it, chewie! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Obligatory question (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Obligatory question (Score:5, Funny)
The whole universe was simulated by ten billion particles, each having a mass a billion times that of our sun.
I somehow doubt that there are scientists which have such a large mass.
Re:Obligatory question (Score:5, Funny)
I somehow doubt that there are scientists which have such a large mass.
How much can hot air weigh?
Re:Why bother? (Score:3, Funny)
Admit it... (Score:2, Funny)
Oh...
just me...
Let's look upward instead (Score:2, Funny)
Now, where can I find the scientists working on a reality-hacking machine?
Great (Score:2, Funny)
One of the tricks (Score:3, Funny)
Now we can get to the tough questions (Score:1, Funny)
Ummmmm, baaaccoonnn (obligatory simpsons quote)
And in other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Stack overflow (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Wait wait wait (Score:3, Funny)
Research in Virginal Territory? (Score:2, Funny)
Apparently, this will be the physics engine... (Score:2, Funny)
get your 42 here! fresh 42! (Score:2, Funny)
I know eBay ads come up often, but I just find the fact that ebay bought ads for "42" (and apparently other numbers) just astounding. Do they really think a lot of people want to buy numbers on eBay? I, for one, buy my numbers down on the corner from a guy named Mickey.
Re:Obligatory question (Score:2, Funny)
Quite a lot, if you get the thermal kinetic energy up into the relativistic territory... once you stop thinking in kelvin and start using teraelectronvolts, you're getting warmer.
You are Here -- (Score:3, Funny)
Warez Request (Score:3, Funny)
thx
Re:Why bother? (Score:2, Funny)
I knew it (Score:2, Funny)
Downloading data (Score:1, Funny)