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CERN Collider To Trigger a Data Deluge

Posted by kdawson on from the things-that-go-bang dept.

slashthedot sends us to High Productivity Computing Wire for a look at the effort to beef up computing and communications infrastructure at a number of US universities in preparation for the data deluge anticipated later this year from two experiments coming online at CERN. The collider will smash protons together hoping to catch a glimpse of the subatomic particles that are thought to have last been seen at the Big Bang. From the article: "The world's largest science experiment, a physics experiment designed to determine the nature of matter, will produce a mountain of data. And because the world's physicists cannot move to the mountain, an army of computer research scientists is preparing to move the mountain to the physicists... The CERN collider will begin producing data in November, and from the trillions of collisions of protons it will generate 15 petabytes of data per year... [This] would be the equivalent of all of the information in all of the university libraries in the United States seven times over. It would be the equivalent of 22 Internets, or more than 1,000 Libraries of Congress. And there is no search function."

11 of 226 comments (clear)

  1. 60% by Alsee · · Score: 4, Funny

    The CERN collider will begin producing data in November, and from the trillions of collisions of protons it will generate 15 petabytes of data per year... [This] would be the equivalent of all of the information in all of the university libraries in the United States seven times over. It would be the equivalent of 22 Internets, or more than 1,000 Libraries of Congress. And there is no search function.

    And 60% of it will be porn.

    -

    --
    - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
    1. Re:60% by carpe_noctem · · Score: 4, Funny

      mmmm... particle porn!

      See the hottest collisions on the web! Watch as innocent particles get ripped apart, revealing their inner quarks! See protons get exploited and penetrated in their luscious gluons!

      --
      "Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
    2. Re:60% by lexarius · · Score: 5, Funny

      Talk like that gives me a large hadron.

  2. Neutrinos by MichaelSmith · · Score: 4, Funny

    I hope they're planning on running their own fiber optic line across the Atlantic

    You know with the right sort of particle accelerator you could send messages straight through the Earth and save a heap of latency.

    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au
    1. Re:Neutrinos by Dunbal · · Score: 4, Funny

      You know with the right sort of particle accelerator you could send messages straight through the Earth and save a heap of latency.

      It's called the "Death Star" project, and we've been having a hell of a time with the receiver...

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  3. 22 Internets per year? by UnHolier+than+ever · · Score: 4, Funny

    Would that be 0.84 Internet per forthnight? Or 1 kiloLibrary per Congress session? How much in tubes?

  4. Re:Is there a danger or isn't there? by SamSim · · Score: 4, Funny

    all the particle colliders of the most recent generation (like the Tevatron at Fermilab or the Relativistic Heavy Ion collider in New York) have the capability (if certain theoretical models are accurate enough) to generate very tiny (around nine millimeters), but stable black holes (though the probability is extremely low)

    Well, yeah, but the probability is about the same as that of you generating a small black hole by clapping your hands together really hard.

    --
    qntm.org
  5. I predict the end of the universe by jamesh · · Score: 4, Funny

    This is really bad news. By defining the amount of data in LoC's, they leave themselves open to a huge exploit... If the LoC ever includes this data, then there will be a recursive loop of definitions and the LoC will expand to fill the universe.

    Okay... maybe not, but if they ever did put this data in the LoC, the effort required to re-factor all the LoC based measurements would bankrupt the world. And the confusion that goes on while this re-factoring is happening will surely crash at least one probe into Mars, where the English have used the new LoC units and the Americans will have used the old LoC units.

  6. Re:OT: The size of the internet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    We are from NASA, and would like to offer you a job in mission planning.

  7. Re:Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 by Dunbal · · Score: 4, Funny

    If they had an A380 (Airbus for teh win ;-)) worth of hard drives installed and ready to tap data, they would not need to move all that data.

    I'm sorry, how much is that in Cessna 172's again?

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  8. Re:No Search Function by Benson+Arizona · · Score: 5, Funny

    Buy Higgs Boson now at e-bay.com

    Buy books about Bosons at Amazon.com