Computing in Science
How computers have evolved to be a
part of the scientific community.
Introduction
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Computers: A Tool For Data
Data Processing
 Databases
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Supercomputing
The Internet
A bit on origins
 How it is used today

Computers: A Tool for Data

Data Processing
Spread sheets
 Word Processing
 Mathematics and Modeling software

Computers: A Tool for Data

Databases

The modern Warehouse for data
Files
 Records
 Fields
 Data points
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Indexing
 Remote Access
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Supercomputing
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The kings of data processing

Single unit supercomputers
Superconductors
 Semiconductors
 Extensions of the “Dinosaurs of Computing”
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Tandem Supercomputers
Many Desktops units tied together in parallel
 Many of the same capabilities
 Lower cost

This supercomputer dubbed “Blue Horizon” boasts 1152 processors and
peak processing power of 1.7 terraflops which is 1.7 trillion operations
per second. This type of computing power has a price tag of over 50
million dollars.
The Internet: Computers United
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Origins
Developed for military applications during the 1960’s
 Early 1970’
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Colleges started forming networks to send data to one
another.
Email: 1972
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A new way to send data developed by Ray Tomlinson. By
1973 more than 75% of all traffic on these networks was
email.
Internet: Computers United

To the Present
Many technologies were developed to enable these
computers to “talk”
 The “Big Bang” of the internet started when the
WWW protocol was released by CERN in 1991
 Communication and Data Gathering on a scale
never seen before.

Computers in Science

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Collection of data
Calculation of results
Modeling of data
Generation of reports
Dissemination of information
Footnote
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The first computer bug
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http://www.maxmon.com/1945ad.htm