LHC@home

I feel like I should put on a hard hat at this point.

I have seen posts appearing fairly regularly asking when we will get data from the collisions to crunch.

Now some of that data is out I thought it was worth reminding people that the collision data is NOT going to be crunched by LHC@home. It will be crunched by a grid programmed specifically for the purpose.

LHC@home will be crunching sixtrack programmes in preparation for the upgrade of the LHC in due course.

I am posting this to save what is left of my sanity after seeing the same issue posted every couple of months or less (whilst waiting to snag an elusive wu).

Given the lack of active support for this project from CERN I think its amazing we have anything to crunch at all so a big thanks to BigMac and Neasan for all their work.

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The fact that they were able to turn the machine up to 7TeV today, and recover from a lost beam quickly tells me that all the crunching we did over the last couple of years have been a success.
They were able to aim the beams accurately, and that\'s what all our number crunching was about.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/30/large-hadron-collider-to-attempt-7-tev-proton-collisions-via-liv/

I\'m glad to see that this computing has been a success.

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I'm not the LHC Alex. Just a number cruncher like everyone else here.

Alex and Chaz are both correct.

Currently there are no plans to crunch LHC data (as I have pointed out a few times now) also the crunching for thelat few years has directly benefited the LHC resulting in the relatively easy start of the LHC (not counting incidents involving birds or sodlering) with regards how quickly they have been able to control the beam

So what is the point of this Boinc project?

Will the project be shutting down?

n2n

So what is the point of this Boinc project?

Will the project be shutting down?

n2n

The point of this project *was* to help design the LHC and as Neasan said, it\'s down to this project that the LHC is as well designed as it is.

The point of keeping it active, AFAIK, is so that non-time-sensitive data *could* be dumped out to us as the scientists need it. It may also be that as new experiments are integrated into the LHC new beam alignment data will need to be crunched and we\'re all set up to do that.
So, if the politics doesn\'t get in the way, the project should be around and we should be available to do the work as it\'s needed.

It\'s been said before and I\'ll repeat it here that we\'re here to support the scientists because it\'s something we believe should be supported.
In the meantime there are other projects which we can reasonably spend out spare cycles on while we wait for data that needs to be crunched in our own especial way. :)

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Also there is an LHC upgrade being planned for 2 years time and some time after that. They will need to do new beam studies for that too so we will be (are) crunching that.

Also there is an LHC upgrade being planned for 2 years time and some time after that. They will need to do new beam studies for that too so we will be (are) crunching that.

I guess it is safe to assume that we will see more activity about this time next year. I would think that by then the CERN crew would be well into the design working towards the upgrade (given lead times on hardware and planning) and producing some data for LHC@Home to crunch.

I have seen a few bits and pieces of work float by (I was fortunate to get a couple) so someplace, somebody is doing something. :)

In the meantime, it would be nice if the LHC@Home project crew could get things sorted out so the data could be crunched on CUDA GPUs. I would think there is enough time before a ton of new data comes along and there should be enough old data that could be used to prove the GPU processing path.

I am crunching AQUA@home which originates in an attempt to build a quantum computer by a Canadian firm called D-wave. Here is a link to a paper they have submitted to an International Journal of High Performance Computing on AQUA@home.
Paper
Tullio

I am crunching AQUA@home...

IMHO, commercial projects are not worth to get our support at all. And, I think, such projects, based on some adroit business model (to snatch, grab computers of science-enthusiasts for free instead of own supercomputer) are hitting entire idea of BOINC and other DC projects.
If commercial projects want to use BOINC essentially, their credits must be convertible to dollars, ducats, rupees... alcohol :-) in exactly known ratios. They must pay real money for real useful job done!

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I am crunching AQUA@home since I have been interested in quantum computing. I have written an article on quantum computing in 1996 for the Italian edition of MIT\'s Technology Review together with my friend Giuseppe Castagnoli. They (D-Wave) are doing a good deal of basic research without any public money coming from my taxes and are publishing in journals which do not require any subscription fee. That is enough for me to help them.
Tullio

That (professional and personal interest) is one of the best reasons I can think of to contribute (unpaid) to a commercial project.

I am crunching AQUA@home since I have been interested in quantum computing. I have written an article on quantum computing in 1996 for the Italian edition of MIT\\\'s Technology Review together with my friend Giuseppe Castagnoli. They (D-Wave) are doing a good deal of basic research without any public money coming from my taxes and are publishing in journals which do not require any subscription fee. That is enough for me to help them.
Tullio

I am crunching AQUA@home...

IMHO, commercial projects are not worth to get our support at all. And, I think, such projects, based on some adroit business model (to snatch, grab computers of science-enthusiasts for free instead of own supercomputer) are hitting entire idea of BOINC and other DC projects.
If commercial projects want to use BOINC essentially, their credits must be convertible to dollars, ducats, rupees... alcohol :-) in exactly known ratios. They must pay real money for real useful job done!

I am not sure that commercial projects are not worth (or worthy) of getting our support but at the same time I tend to agree that there should be some quid pro quo to getting a lot of processing power that is currently free. If not in the form of some kind of credits that can be used by the BOINCer then at least the company should have to enter into an agreement whereby the algorithm and results are in the public domain.

It is understandable that time on BOINC processors was free during the period when the distributed computing concept was being proven but BOINC is real and now its time to expect some kind of return on the investment when commercial projects are involved. There may be a period of time when commercial companies get to process via BOINC for free (proof of concept) but eventually you have to take the free sandwiches off the bar when that is all the people come in for.

As an Italian taxpayer I am contributing to CERN and LHC. When they publish the results of their experiments they do it in a referred journal such as Physical Review, Physics, Il Nuovo Cimento,etc. To publish in such journals you have to pay page charges, which are also paid with my money. But when I, a private citizen, want to read the results of their experiments, already paid with my money, I have to pay a third time for a subscription fee. This is why I am in favor of people, like those at D-Wave, which publish in free journals like the one I\'ve made a link to.
Just to quench any joke about Italian taxpayers, as a salaried worker and now a pensioner, when I receive a salary and now a pension, all taxes have already been deducted from my salary/pension. If I have a right to some refunds, such as medical expenses and so on, I must fill a form and ask for them. The refunds used to come years later, now, thanks to computers, they come only months later. Computers can also be useful.
Tullio

ABut when I, a private citizen, want to read the results of their experiments, already paid with my money, I have to pay a third time for a subscription fee.
Tullio

A lot of new results can be obtained online on free servers like http://arxiv.org/

I can recommend especially the following pages:
# High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex new, recent, find)
http://arxiv.org/archive/hep-ex
# High Energy Physics - Lattice (hep-lat new, recent, find)
http://arxiv.org/archive/hep-lat
# High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph new, recent, find)
http://arxiv.org/archive/hep-ph
# High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th new, recent, find)
http://arxiv.org/archive/hep-th
You could have all articles as PDF for free download.
Hope this helps.
Greetings from a German taxpayer
dr.mabuse

Thanks, dr.mabuse.Another good source is this:
Physics
Tullio

As an Italian taxpayer I am contributing to CERN and LHC. When they publish the results of their experiments they do it in a referred journal such as Physical Review, Physics, Il Nuovo Cimento,etc. To publish in such journals you have to pay page charges, which are also paid with my money. But when I, a private citizen, want to read the results of their experiments, already paid with my money, I have to pay a third time for a subscription fee. This is why I am in favor of people, like those at D-Wave, which publish in free journals like the one I\\\'ve made a link to.
Just to quench any joke about Italian taxpayers, as a salaried worker and now a pensioner, when I receive a salary and now a pension, all taxes have already been deducted from my salary/pension. If I have a right to some refunds, such as medical expenses and so on, I must fill a form and ask for them. The refunds used to come years later, now, thanks to computers, they come only months later. Computers can also be useful.
Tullio

I agree with you, a project being at least in part commercial does not mean it\'s not worthy of participation. Would be a pity to miss out on a significant discovery/invention just because we got shirty about someone making a profit.
Just hope that they distribute those future profits in a wise and fair fashion to benefit mankind as a whole. That will do until man grows up enough to be able to get rid of things like money.

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For all I know about the subject of quantum computing I believe they are still way off from having a commercial product and I am also wondering about their financing, unless they get money from some State institutions (armed forces?).
Tullio

This from Nature Physics:
The Grid
Tullio
Sorry, they must have shut it down. I could read an print it.
Now it works again.

My English is very weak...
Am I correct? The Grid is big, ultra-powerful, but its resources are limited, so that grid-computing is going slower as data collecting at LHC...

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What I was taught about Capitalism was that the capitalist risks his own resources in a bid to become successful. Commercial companies using BOINC is equivalent to me asking each of the 2 million BOINC members to send me a dollar each so that I may be of comfortable means. If I were King, commercial use would be banned.
Until there is a plan to either pay me shares of stock in those companies or donate back to the non commercial BOINC projects I am very careful not to give such entities my efforts, as I believe you all should.

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