Engineers do this all the time. I am a mechanical engineer, and the analysis software packages I use to assist in design and analysis of my creations does just this: solve massive systems of equations.
This is very common and very useful.
Also, if I had a PC with 100 times the memory and speed, I could still bring it to its knees. As it is, I have to simplify and granulate my models to make them fit the computing power I have.
How do you think they predict the weather? Design cars and planes? Do thermal analysis? Do vibration analysis? Do electromagnetic analysis? Do displacement/stress analysis? Do computational fluid dynamics? Do transient analysis of all the above?
This sounds like a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) program. If so, this is a subset of finite element analysis (FEA) widely used in industry. This is an incredibly powerful technique that is used in all types of engineering.
"Chaotic" effects aside, what the program seeks to do, is solve the governing equations of temperature and fluid motion with user applied boundary conditions. To do this, the physical model is broken down into a number of "finite elements" of simple geometry, for which an analytical solution is known. These are assembled into a large matrix, and then the computationally intensive task is to invert the matrix. The matrix may be hundreds of thousands of elements on a side.
The main types of errors in this type of analysis are:
1. Modeling error - wrong inputs or boundary conditions, or bad software
2. Discretization error - the error associated with breaking down a smooth functions into a finite number of separate pieces.
3. Numerical error - the round-off or truncation error in the numerical processing.
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder if the destruction of the World Trade Center towers will discourage investors from a project that involves a tall structure?
Engineers do this all the time. I am a mechanical engineer, and the analysis software packages I use to assist in design and analysis of my creations does just this: solve massive systems of equations.
This is very common and very useful.
Also, if I had a PC with 100 times the memory and speed, I could still bring it to its knees. As it is, I have to simplify and granulate my models to make them fit the computing power I have.
How do you think they predict the weather? Design cars and planes? Do thermal analysis? Do vibration analysis? Do electromagnetic analysis? Do displacement/stress analysis? Do computational fluid dynamics? Do transient analysis of all the above?
This sounds like a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) program. If so, this is a subset of finite element analysis (FEA) widely used in industry. This is an incredibly powerful technique that is used in all types of engineering.
"Chaotic" effects aside, what the program seeks to do, is solve the governing equations of temperature and fluid motion with user applied boundary conditions. To do this, the physical model is broken down into a number of "finite elements" of simple geometry, for which an analytical solution is known. These are assembled into a large matrix, and then the computationally intensive task is to invert the matrix. The matrix may be hundreds of thousands of elements on a side.
The main types of errors in this type of analysis are:
1. Modeling error - wrong inputs or boundary conditions, or bad software
2. Discretization error - the error associated with breaking down a smooth functions into a finite number of separate pieces.
3. Numerical error - the round-off or truncation error in the numerical processing.
I hope they get good results!