If I had that much money, I too would try and buy a Nobel Prize in preference to a yacht.
D. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Lawrence Stewart Sent: 05 December 2008 16:18 To: Robert G. Brown Cc: Beowulf Mailing List; Lux, James P Subject: Re: [Beowulf] Intro question I've been to a couple of DE Shaw talks and I always come away puzzled. It's tempting to conclude that they are just smarter than I am, but maybe they are just wrong. My understanding is they are building a special purpose molecular dynamics machine because it will be far faster than a general purpose machine programmed to do MD. In principle this might work, if you get the problem statement right, and you can design and build the machine before the general purpose machines catch up, and you don't make any mistakes, and after it is built you can keep designing new ones. In practice it always seems to take longer than you expected and cost more, and maybe that 7 bit ALU really has to be changed to an 8 bit ALU to keep the precision up. The most effective example I know of are the QCD machines like QCDOC that led to BlueGene, but it was far more general purpose than Shaw's machine. Trying it seems harmless, and a better use of excess capital than buying basketball teams or yachts, but it does divert smart people from other activities. Of course if they succeed I'll have been behind it all the way. -- -Larry / Sector IX _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf _______________________________________________ Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
