CERN Launches Huge LHC Computing Grid

RaaVi writes "Yesterday CERN launched the largest computing grid in the world, which is destined to analyze the data coming from the world's biggest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider. The computing grid consists of more than 140 computer centers from around the world working together to handle the expected 10-15 petabytes of data the LHC will generate each year." The Worldwide LHC Computing Grid will initially handle data for up to 7,000 scientists around the world. Though the LHC itself is down for some lengthy repairs, an event called GridFest was held yesterday to commemorate the occasion. The LCG will run alongside the LHC@Home volunteer project.

Comments

Re:Why so much?

[gardyloo]

You only see the impact images where something pretty or exciting happened. For each of those, there are several thousands to several billions of ones where nothing happened. Additionally, there are a lot of quantities to be measured which don't show up on pictures of particles doing curlicues in magnetic fields, such as spectroscopy data (at least several megabytes from each of several hundreds of detectors per collision).

Finally...

[Anonymous Coward]

We can run Vista *with* Aero

Doomed

[dexmachina]

I've heard this so called "grid" might create an information black hole from all of the data. Is this true? We're all gonna die!

Re:Why so much?

[imsabbel]

To you mean those particle trails with "impact image"?
Just think about the resolution of those trails.
Add the 3rd dimension.
And then consider that to build this trail, they need the data of ALL sonsors in the volume, to pick out what belongs to the trail.

And then think about his happening 10 million times per second...

They filter out all but a couple 1000 of them, but this still amounts to a lot of data.

And the higgs boson just doesnt appeast in one single image. It might show up in certain types of cascades, or anomalities in other processes, that only become obvious if a huge statiscal base is evaluated.

Porn?

[Anonymous Coward]

"As the grid is ready but no data is expected to be produced by the LHC for the next few months, engineers have received permission to temporarily fill all 15 petabytes with adult material in an effort to test the infrastructure."

Re:Porn?

[kurzweilfreak]

Mmm, hot particle-on-particle action.

I has a

[markov_chain]

hadron!

Re:Why so much?

[lysergic.acid]

consider that:

• the LHC contains 150 million sensors collecting 700 MB per second.
• the experiment accelerates beams composed of multiple "bunches" of 1.1 x 10^11 protons each.
• each of the aforementioned beams contains 2808 "bunches."
• when the beams converge they cause 600 million collisions per second.
• each collision between two protons produces many smaller subatomic particles.

scientists are tracking the paths in which the resultant subatomic particles travel not just to find detectable post-collision phenomena, but they are also looking to see what is missing from those impact images (what their sensors cannot pick up). this will allow scientists to predict strange and interesting new particles that science has yet to discover. but in order to detect what is missing, they have to make sure to record all that is there (or not missing). and that means tracking perhaps tens of billions of particles and their travel path in 3-dimensions at very high resolutions, and at very high sampling rates.