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Scientists Complete Universe Millennium Simulation

Posted by timothy on from the prayer-wheels-can-stop dept.

james tech writes "The Virgo Consortium recently completed its massive "Millennium Simulation", tracing the universe's evolution from its early origins to present day. To simplify the computations, they considered only dark matter which composes most of the universe. Using a 512-node cluster with IBM processors, the group produced over 20 terabytes of data with some of the most breathtaking images of the universe never seen. A visible matter simulation is underway, at a lower resolution."

12 of 375 comments (clear)

  1. impressive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Wow, this is some impressive stuff indeed.... Of course I'm talking about their "not yet slashdotted" webserver that's probably handling a lot of big 50MB downloads right now.

    1. Re:impressive by LucidBeast · · Score: 4, Funny

      Well, what did you think they did with that super computer after they were done simulating the whole universe.

  2. Total Millenium Vortex by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    The scientists are working on future versions of the software that will exptrapolate the whole Millenium simulation from a piece of pie.

  3. Talk about bloat by sygin · · Score: 5, Funny

    "20 terabytes of data" This has to be the most bloated screensaver ever!

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    Don't make your problems my problems!
    1. Re:Talk about bloat by AndroidCat · · Score: 5, Funny

      There's talk of Google buying them out and offering it as Google Everything.

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  4. Big bang by Xoknit · · Score: 4, Funny

    After the images of the simulation were released, a second big bang was reported by the scientists of the project, originating from the server room.

    Apparently all the packets on the internet condensed in one of their servers and created a second universe, from now on to be referred to as "cyberspace".

  5. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  6. Typical by CleverNickedName · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Virgo Consortium recently completed its massive "Millennium Simulation", tracing the universe's evolution from its early origins to present day. To simplify the computations, they considered only dark matter...

    Reminds me of a joke:
    A rich oil-baron hires a veterinarian, a statistician and a physicist to develop a method for predicting the outcome of a horse race. The three scientists disappear for a week and each returns with a different method; The vet states "I have studied the form, health and blood-lines of all the horses for the next race and can confidently say that number 7 is the best of the lot. Whether he wins on the day, is another question". The Statistician boasts "I have studied the race histories of all the horses in the next race and all the races ran on this track and can definitely say that horse number 3 has a 85% chance of coming in the top 3". The physicist then strides up to the baron and boldly proclaims "I have developed a way to predict the outcome of any race with 100% accuracy! First, one assumes that the horses are perfectly spherical and moving through a vacuum...".

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    Unfortunately, I am not Wil Wheaton
  7. So, to quickly simulate everything that exists... by kahei · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...they left out everything that is actually known to exist.

    Yay!

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    Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
  8. And the Answer is by dankasfuk · · Score: 4, Funny

    Forty-two.

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  9. Ok, Let me get this straight... by mritunjai · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm sleep deprieved, but have a fundamental question... the article said they only simulated 'dark matter' and produced 'breath-taking images'!!

    Breath-taking images of *DARK MATTER* ??? WTF

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    - mritunjai
  10. Well, rumor has it that... by alien-alien · · Score: 5, Funny

    After 6 days of calculation, they took the next day off.