Applications of parallel supercomputers: Scientific results and computer science lessons

Conference · Wed Jul 12 04:00:00 EDT 1989

OSTI ID:5840815

Fox, G C

Parallel Computing has come of age with several commercial and inhouse systems that deliver supercomputer performance. We illustrate this with several major computations completed or underway at Caltech on hypercubes, transputer arrays and the SIMD Connection Machine CM-2 and AMT DAP. Applications covered are lattice gauge theory, computational fluid dynamics, subatomic string dynamics, statistical and condensed matter physics,theoretical and experimental astronomy, quantum chemistry, plasma physics, grain dynamics, computer chess, graphics ray tracing, and Kalman filters. We use these applications to compare the performance of several advanced architecture computers including the conventional CRAY and ETA-10 supercomputers. We describe which problems are suitable for which computers in the terms of a matching between problem and computer architecture. This is part of a set of lessons we draw for hardware, software, and performance. We speculate on the emergence of new academic disciplines motivated by the growing importance of computers. 138 refs., 23 figs., 10 tabs.

• Research Organization: California Inst. of Tech., Pasadena, CA (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: FG03-85ER25009
• OSTI ID: 5840815
• Report Number(s): DOE/ER/25009-806; CONF-8903158-1; ON: DE89016385
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
990210* -- Supercomputers-- (1987-1989)
ARRAY PROCESSORS
ASTRONOMY
CHEMISTRY
COMPOSITE MODELS
COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE
COMPUTER GRAPHICS
ELECTRIC CONDUCTIVITY
ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES
EXTENDED PARTICLE MODEL
FIELD THEORIES
FLUID MECHANICS
LATTICE FIELD THEORY
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MECHANICS
MONTE CARLO METHOD
NUCLEAR REACTIONS
NUCLEOSYNTHESIS
PARALLEL PROCESSING
PARTICLE MODELS
PERFORMANCE
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
PHYSICS
PROGRAMMING
QUANTUM FIELD THEORY
QUARK MODEL
SOLID STATE PHYSICS
SPACE-TIME
STRING MODELS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY
SYNTHESIS
THERMONUCLEAR REACTIONS
USES