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Nuclear Fusion Simulator Among Software Picked For US's Summit Supercomputer

Posted by samzenpus on from the how-about-a-nice-game-of-chess dept.

An anonymous reader writes Today, The Register has learned of 13 science projects approved by boffins at the US Department of Energy to run on the 300-petaFLOPS Summit. These software packages, selected for the Center for Accelerated Application Readiness (CAAR) program, will be ported to the massive parallel machine, and are hoped to make full use of the supercomputer's architecture.They range from astrophysics, biophysics, chemistry, and climate modeling to combustion engineering, materials science, nuclear physics, plasma physics and seismology.

57 comments

  1. How about by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    How about a simulator of how niggers take over neighborhoods, drive out all the good productive law-abiding white folk, and turn everything into dangerous ghettos?

    1. Re: How about by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Actaully they built that in the late 70's, its was called Detroit.

    2. Re: How about by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Best response to a racist troll I've seen in a while! Almost spit out my coffee! Props to you, mister AC!

    3. Re: How about by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What exactly are you clapping about?

      https://murderbymedia2.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/1429051281795.jpg

    4. Re: How about by prefec2 · · Score: 0

      On the left side of you image, we can see white men murdering most people in Hiroshima with a atom bomb. On the right you can see what happens when white men focus on short term returns of their investment and give a shit on society.

    5. Re: How about by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On the left side of you image, we can see white men murdering most people in Hiroshima with a atom bomb.

      Japs aren't people.

  2. No Minecraft? by Nyder · · Score: 2

    Oh, wait, MS bought Minecraft, no wonder they didn't include it.

    --
    Be seeing you...
    1. Re:No Minecraft? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, wait, MS bought Minecraft, no wonder they didn't include it.

      Oh, wait, MS bought Minecraft, no wonder they didn't include it.

      Yipppppeeeeeee for Minecraft!

    2. Re:No Minecraft? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nor Crysis. They don't aim that high.

    3. Re:No Minecraft? by minecraftgamestoplay · · Score: 1

      Yes for Minecraft, I am sure if they would include it or not!

      --
      Play Minecraft Games To Play
  3. Boffin?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    WTF is a boffin?

    1. Re:Boffin?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's like a puffin.

    2. Re: Boffin?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it's not a science article from the Register if it doesn't have BOFFINS in it at least three times

    3. Re:Boffin?? by flatt · · Score: 3, Funny

      WTF is a boffin?

      No one really knows but many of them died to bring us this information.

    4. Re:Boffin?? by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      For a long time the reason why schools of boffin sometimes beached themselves in places like the Thames estuary was unknown, but we now think the cause is a vain search for funding.

    5. Re:Boffin?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      WTF is a boffin?

      Yipppppeeeeee for boffins!!!!!!!

    6. Re:Boffin?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      WTF is a boffin?

      Yipppppeeeeee for boffins!!!!!!!

      Super Yippppeeeessss for all boffins!!!!!!!

    7. Re:Boffin?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A boffin is British slang for a scientist, engineer, or other person engaged in technical or scientific work. The original World War II conception of war-winning researchers means that the term tends to have more positive connotations than related terms like egghead, nerd, or geek.

    8. Re:Boffin?? by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 1

      A WWII radar operator. I'm serious. Google Books it.

    9. Re:Boffin?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Register is a sleazy tabloid. Just because it covers tech stuff doesn't mean anyone should be linking it. They use lots of hyperbole (lying) and name calling. Boffin is what they call scientists. Slashdot should find better links.

  4. slashdot unusable... obnoxious ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ads that auto-play... ads that pop-up and cover entire screen... this is absurd.

    so long, slashdot, thanks for all the fish.

    1. Re: slashdot unusable... obnoxious ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You surf the internet without adblock, ghostery, and/or hosts files? Are you retarded or just a masochist?

    2. Re: slashdot unusable... obnoxious ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      lazy...

      plus there are better websites that don't have ads, so it's not that big of a deal... or at the very least, not obtrusive ads

    3. Re: slashdot unusable... obnoxious ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      plus there are better websites that don't have ads

      They why are you here?

    4. Re: slashdot unusable... obnoxious ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      habit

  5. Stuck In A Rut by sk999 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Still only 2 GB memory per core. We've been stuck there for more than a decade. Useless piece of iron ...

    1. Re:Stuck In A Rut by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you know, you can build these things with whatever you want.

      you get a budget and get to spend it on memory, cores, internode bandwidth, storage capacity, storage
      bandwidth, just like one of those space explorer video games

      blame the wankers at the national labs trying to get the largest linpack scores while whinging on
      about 'balance'

    2. Re:Stuck In A Rut by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It doesn't have 2GB/core. Infact Summit's strength is having a shit load of memory for the node. The fat nodes are plenty fat (lots of flops and lots of RAM/NVRAM).

    3. Re:Stuck In A Rut by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Still only 2 GB memory per core. We've been stuck there for more than a decade. Useless piece of iron ...

      But terabytes and terabytes integrated across the whole machine. The key to these beasts is splitting up you problem appropriately amongst the workers, otherwise you'll get crap performance and hit memory limits.

  6. Who cares about fusion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    At this rate, we're going to be wiped out in 100 years. Let's try to solve global warming and poverty and economic inequality first. What's the point in simulating something that will never come to fruition because we wipe each other out first?

    1. Re:Who cares about fusion by ceoyoyo · · Score: 5, Funny

      Sure, because a cheap, clean source of energy wouldn't help with any of those things.

    2. Re:Who cares about fusion by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      Let's try to solve global warming and poverty and economic inequality first.

      Cost effective fusion reactors could be a solution to all of these.

    3. Re:Who cares about fusion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We've had cheap sources of energy before, you know. And it seems that with the more primitive ones, we did the most progress.
      After that, the increased productivity of further technologies went to the rentiers, not the rest of us.

    4. Re: Who cares about fusion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fusion is just a pipe dream, like ftl travel. A better solution would be to kill all rich people and Americans.

    5. Re: Who cares about fusion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fusion is just a pipe dream,

      You can wake up now.

    6. Re: Who cares about fusion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They also did the most damage to the earth. And they are not sustainable for the long term. "Progress" as in economic development, is not always the best goal.

    7. Re: Who cares about fusion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, fusion exists at least in thermonuclear weapons, the Sun, and F-H Fusors in countless garages. There isn't a shred of physical evidence for anything being able to travel faster than light.

      Fusion *power* is definitely quixotic, I'll give you that. But if I had to put money into either ITER or FTL, I know where I'd put it. And if I could put it anywhere else, I'd choose wisely among the "bio-punk" and social movements rather than 1960s-style big tech.

    8. Re: Who cares about fusion by stealth_finger · · Score: 1

      Fusion is just a pipe dream, like ftl travel. A better solution would be to kill all rich people and Americans.

      Yeah just like the heavier than air flight pipe dream and all the shit load of other pipe dreams that have become a reality. So if you're done being no help, kindly fuck off.

      --
      Wanna buy a shirt?
      https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
    9. Re:Who cares about fusion by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 1

      > Cost effective fusion reactors

      Oxymoron.

      We *might* build a working fusion reactor someday.

      However, we already know it will not be cost effective. Everyone knows this. The head of the French nuclear research group and the director of the Max Planck Institute co-wrote a paper explaining why. So did the former director of the US fusion program. So have lots of other people.

      The problem is very simple. A wind turbine consists of a generator, a turbine, and a metal pole. A coal plant consists of a generator, steam turbine, cooling, piping, coal boiler, scrubbers and a very large building. Thus, after initial development during the 1990s and 2000s, wind turbines have become much cheaper than coal plants. As a result, coal plant construction has fallen. You may point to China, but China is installing more wind than coal, as is everyone else on the planet.

      And this will be true forever. The inherent comparative complexity of the two systems means that wind will always be cheaper. In fact, even if you skip the boiler, the rest of the plant is still more expensive. Make sure you understand that; a complete wind turbine is less expensive than half of a coal plant.

      A fusion plant consists of all of the same parts as a coal plant, except we replace the boiler with a FANTASTICALLY EXPENSIVE fusion reactor, lithium cooling system, tritium extractor, superconducting magnets, etc etc. This part will always, always, be fantastically more expensive than a coal fired boiler. So it will never, ever, be cheaper than wind turbines. Ever. Not even remotely close.

      At this point you'll want to say something like "you can't predict the future" or similar twaddle, in spite of science having been invented to do just that. But there's a more powerful counterargument: as it stands, wind is cheaper than a coal plant without a burner. So even if you can build the fusion reactor for zero dollars, no one will build one. So now you start thinking of ways to lower the cost of the rest of the system, inserting unobtanium or some science fiction energy extraction system. The problem is you've just made coal and fission cheaper too.

    10. Re:Who cares about fusion by Nite_Hawk · · Score: 1

      I'm amazed you wrote this entire long post and didn't mention once the amount of power that gets generated by each type of plant or long term maintenance costs. I believe that your premise *could* be true, but you're statement is no better than saying that dirts bikes are better than UPS trucks for delivering packages because they cost significantly less.

  7. Thanks by creativenid · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    thanks for sharing information http://www.creativenid.co.uk/

    1. Re:Thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      learn as much as you want creativenid.co.uk is providing unlimited free education it is totally free and always will be you may learn any thing any time when ever you want like any computer course such as graphic design or web development and many more

      It clearly doesn't teach you how to punctuate.

  8. We need a human biology model by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

    A sufficiently detailed human physiology mode could mean a big drop in the time and expense of searching for and qualifying new medications.

    1. Re:We need a human biology model by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fuck that. There are more important things than helping mere humans remain alive. Fusion is one of them.

    2. Re:We need a human biology model by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cool. Another think we might consider modeling is the health care cost structure that has doctors/hospitals/drug cos/etc charging $15 for a Tylenol.

    3. Re:We need a human biology model by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How much per hour does the head that prescribed the Tylenol have to charge to cover his costs sufficiently to incentivize him to take the gamble on medical school debt and several years of slave labor during their residency? The AMA doesn't board certify every person who passes their classes with a "C" and that's a Zero-sum game that you have to fight against when the education institution is practicing "cooling out".

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooling_out

      Oh, also: his profit incentive is proportional to the malpractice liability that the alcoholic he prescribed that Tylenol doesn't sue after getting liver disease when he thinks it's a good idea to take acetaminophen for his hangover.

      $15/hr is pretty cheap to usher that doctor through medical school and get every jack-ass in West Virginia a new boat when they sue their doctor for the consequences of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

      Better outsource the decision making to the nurses and let them take the fall when the patient gets lost in the "Kansas City Shuffle".

  9. "Simulations of fusion are only 50 years away!" by tlambert · · Score: 1

    "Simulations of fusion are only 50 years away!"

    1. Re:"Simulations of fusion are only 50 years away!" by SomeoneFromBelgium · · Score: 1

      Let's hope not. The ITER project (link for which this simulation is intended, is planning to have first plasma in 2020. Which means that the simulation, when run in 2018, will be just about in time for making last ajustments in the steering of the magnes and other anti EMP measures that are in place.

  10. Simulation vs Reduction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A fusion simulation?

    So a heterogeneous simulation with lots of nodes for the purpose of using a supercomputer? When it could be analyzed, reduced to a few equations and done on a pocket calculator?

    It's like integrating everything numerically instead of solving the equation, if you solve the equation you understand the problem, if you integrate numerically you get a numeric result but no understanding of the process. This is busy work, to justify a supercomputer not useful work to make a fusion reactor.

    1. Re:Simulation vs Reduction by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      When it could be analyzed, reduced to a few equations and done on a pocket calculator?

      I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that you have no idea what you're talking about.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    2. Re:Simulation vs Reduction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are equations that cannot be solved analytically.

    3. Re:Simulation vs Reduction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And he didn't even need a pocket calculator to figure that out.

  11. fusion is the new "war" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    maybe someone can enlighten me why there is such a big emphasize on fusing atoms.
    looking back in history there was NO interest in generating electricity from splitting atoms.
    it was about death, destruction and making bigger bombs.
    later on, as a side effect from these alchemistic exercises it was realized that the generated HEAT (from a split uranium atom) could replace wood, coal, gas or bunker oil in a steam engine.
    to this very day the nuclear component and the electricity generating component in a nuclear reactor are on diametral opposite sides of the room and connected only by a pipe with steam inside.
    now it seems that with fusion the same paradigm is applied: on the left side of the room we have the fusion chamber and on the other side the same-old same-old steam turbine with electricity generator.
    why in heaven are we soo focused in fusing atoms when the real ultimate goal should be a steam-less device that has 3phase electrical input on one side and a 3phase electical output on the other with more 3phase electricity comeing out then we put in?
    THIS is the goal and the fact that it needs hydrogen and lots of magnets and has helium as exhaust is really just a side effect.
    -
    has anyone thought about forming and hocking up permanent magnet into a chainlink (like in a bicycle) looping it around some hydrogen filled tube, connecting it to a polyphase motor and see what happens?

  12. Yay! by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 1

    Now we can get useless results twice as fast!

    For those of you unfamiliar with the history:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LASNEX

  13. Supercomputers already do drug design by gentryx · · Score: 1

    Computational drug design is already a big topic in supercomputing, although it's much more focused on interactions of individual molecules. That's currently so complex that it's more efficient to build specialized machines (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... ).

    --
    Computer simulation made easy -- LibGeoDecomp
  14. How about Fusion@Home? by RogueWarrior65 · · Score: 1

    Why can't we do the equivalent of SETI@Home or the protein folding thing or hell, even bitcoin mining for fusion simulation?

  15. Oh, please, if there was a fusion reactor in dev by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    I mean, come on, if there was a fusion reactor being developed, it would be at the UW and ...

    oh

    Hmm.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --