16 PS3's used to Simulate Black Hole Collisions

S

Strubes

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/03/05/ps3s-used-to-simulate-black-hole-collisions/

It's like our favorite old-school commercial: "Mr. Owl, how many Playstation 3s does it take to simulate a collision between two black holes?" Apparently, the answer is 16.

A group at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth hopes to use a cluster of 16 PS3s to run the simulation, specifically looking at the properties of the gravity waves emitted by the collision. The cluster -- nicknamed the PS3 Gravity Grid -- was built with a partial donation from Sony, who must like watching really big stuff collide as much as we do.

Similar simulations have been run before (most notably by NASA), but this marks the first time the super-calculation has been performed using a game console. Like our colleagues as PS3 Fanboy, we admit that most of the technical jargon presented here is way over our heads. We're sure some of you will "get it," though, and not just resort to Tootsie Roll references.
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Crazy stuff! I tried reading it but was pretty lost, some really confusing words in there! That article about PC video cards was pretty sweet, too, btw.
 
M.C. Koopa said:
it cool and all, but why?
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It's probably the cheapest option out there to build a computer powerful enough to do so.
Strubes said:
I don't know. There's a ton of weird experiments out there. The PS3, though, is the only system powerful enough to do this though.
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16 PS3's are the only ones out there powerful enough to do this. You could really do it with any console. Take a hundred Wii's, and get them to work in tandem, and they probably have the processing power to do the same thing.
 
Homicidal Cherry53 said:
16 PS3's are the only ones out there powerful enough to do this. You could really do it with any console. Take a hundred Wii's, and get them to work in tandem, and they probably have the processing power to do the same thing.
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Proof? :D
 
Strubes said:
Proof? :D
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Most likely common sense. It's just that the PS3 is the most powerful, so even though it's so expensive, it's the cheapest(and probably least space and electricity consuming) to use.
 
fhqwhgads said:
Most likely common sense. It's just that the PS3 is the most powerful, so even though it's so expensive, it's the cheapest(and probably least space and electricity consuming) to use.
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Soo...proof?
 
Strubes said:
Proof? :D
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They haven't tried to do this with the Wii, so it's not like I can give you a link to an article. But the reason they needed to link together so many PS3's was that they needed extra processing power (because they really don't need HD graphics or a Blu-ray player for this kind of thing). If I remember correctly, the PS3 has four or five times the processing power of the Wii, so logic would dictate that you would merely have to get four or five times more Wii's to work in tandem, and they would have the power to do the exact same thing.

It isn't like there is something that is exclusively on the PS3 that this simlation needs to run, unless they somehow end up needing a Blu-ray drive to program something.
 
Still no proof..but that's ok. Seriously, I was kidding around. Hence why I didn't go into much detail. Simma down. I know it's a terrible thing that the PS3 was involved in something.
 
Strubes said:
Simma down.
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I merely gave you an explanation of my logic. Nothing is simmering here.
Strubes said:
I know it's a terrible thing that the PS3 was involved in something.
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Not at all. Honestly, I don't see how you could gather that from what I said. I was merely pointing out that any computer (or console because they are basically computers, specialized for gaming) with enough processing power could do the exact same thing.
 
Homicidal Cherry53 said:
I merely gave you an explanation of my logic. Nothing is simmering here.Not at all. Honestly, I don't see how you could gather that from what I said. I was merely pointing out that any computer (or console because they are basically computers, specialized for gaming) with enough processing power could do the exact same thing.
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Oi..this place isn't as fun as it used to be. Sure. Ok. You win. :lol

Zidart said:
still....what's the point of buying 16 ps3's just to do that?
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Apparently this college. :lol
 
Zidart said:
still....what's the point of buying 16 ps3's just to do that?
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Probably the same reason that the Air Force is using PS3s.

The processors in the Sony PlayStation 3 are the only brand on the market that utilizes the specific cell processor characteristics needed for this program at an acceptable cost.
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That would be my guess.
 
The processors in the Sony PlayStation 3 are the only brand on the market that utilizes the specific cell processor characteristics needed for this program at an acceptable cost.
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Well there we go. Looks like no other console can do this. Problem solved. :)
 
The cell processor thing was for the Air Force, though, not necessarily the black hole study. What I was getting at, was that it was probably more financially feasable to pay for 16 PS3s than it would be to pay for 5 times the amount of Wiis or 3 times the amount of 360s (or however many 360s they would need to equal the processing power of a PS3).

Not that it matters, since I'm sure you bought your PS3 to play games, not simulate black holes, and all of the consoles can play games, so what does it really matter if the Wii or 360 weren't used for this study? :lol
 
Mai Valentine said:
The cell processor thing was for the Air Force, though, not necessarily the black hole study. What I was getting at, was that it was probably more financially feasable to pay for 16 PS3s than it would be to pay for 5 times the amount of Wiis or 3 times the amount of 360s (or however many 360s they would need to equal the processing power of a PS3).

Not that it matters, since I'm sure you bought your PS3 to play games, not simulate black holes, and all of the consoles can play games, so what does it really matter if the Wii or 360 weren't used for this study? :lol
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Ah, I stand corrected.

And No, I bought my PS3 for the black hole simulation! That's the best game ever! :lol

It doesn't matter what system it was, but it was just pretty cool that the PS3's been used for these types of experiments. :)
 
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