DENVER--(BUSINESS WIRE)--To help tell the story of how high performance computing is enabling truly “out of this world” discoveries, SC17 (the world’s largest supercomputing conference) has released a brief video that focuses on the role of high performance computers in the 2017 Nobel Prize-winning LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) collaboration. The just-announced prize was awarded for the discovery of gravitational waves, originally theorized 100 years ago by Albert Einstein in his general theory of relativity.
LIGO, funded by the National Science Foundation, uses incredibly sophisticated geographically-distributed laser detectors to find the elusive sounds in the universe that prove the existence of gravitational waves.
“We are only now beginning to hear the vibrations of space-time that are all around us—we just needed a better ear. And when we detect that, we’re detecting the vibrations of everything that has ever moved in the universe. This is real. This is really there, and we’ve never noticed it until now,” said Alan Weinstein Head, Caltech LIGO Laboratory Astrophysics Group and Professor of Physics, Caltech.
About SC17:
SC17 is the premier international conference showcasing the many ways high performance computing, networking, storage and analysis leads to advances in scientific discovery, research, education and commerce. The annual event, created and sponsored by ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) and the IEEE Computer Society, attracts HPC professionals and educators from around the globe to participate in its complete technical education program, workshops, a world-class exhibit area, demonstrations and opportunities for hands-on learning. SC17 takes place in Denver, Colorado, from Nov. 12-17, 2017.
