Computational Physics on Astronomy's History

This was a small talk I gave on the Astronomical Observatory of Lisbon.

Transcript

1. COMPUTATIONAL PHYSICS ON ASTRONOMY’S HISTORY Daniel Filipe Bento Faculdade de Ciências Universidade de Lisboa PT-Comunicações - SAPO
2. ASTRONOMY Is the oldest of the natural sciences with origin on religious, mythological and astrological practices Daniel Bento - 2014
3. Babylonian Tables gives us a lof of information about their vision of the world ANCIENT ASTRONOMY Daniel Bento - 2014
4. Babylonian Mathematics: sexagesimal (base 60) numeral system • Our modern day usage of 60 seconds, 60 minutes and 360 degrees derives from here • Ancient Greeks developed Astronomy as a branch of Mathematics • Acient Indian astronomy is based upon sideral calculations (orbits) ANCIENT ASTRONOMY AND MATH Daniel Bento - 2014
5. Star map with equidistante cylindrical projection by Su Song ANCIENT ASTRONOMY AND MATH • Su Song was a polymath from china, specialized in astronomy, cartography, horology, pharmacology, … • There are records of astronomical observations in China from about 600 BC. • They were capable to predict solar eclipses Daniel Bento - 2014
6. CRAB NEBULA Crab Nebula in 1054 is one of the “guest starts” observed by Chineses • 185 AD: first record of a supernova • First Star Catalogue was made by Gan De 400BC Daniel Bento - 2014
7. • Antikythera mechanism: Analog Computer from 150-100 BC designed to calculate the position of stars • Greek design it to predict astronomical positions and eclipses • Only in 14th century it starts to apear astronomical clocks with this complexity ANCIENT ASTRONOMY AND MATH Daniel Bento - 2014
8. MIDDLE AGE ASTRONOMY a) Astrolab was created by Isam in 1200 AD b) Compass was invented by Chinese about 206 BC • Mediaval Islamic world had a lof of knowledge from Greek and Indian Astronomy • Mediaval Western Europe receive contributions from Greek schools, but durring the middle ages nothing happened Daniel Bento - 2014
9. BUT, AND MATHEMATICS? John Nepier (1550-1617) – mathematician, physicist and astronomer You should now: Log tables were the best resource to do big calculations They are the bases of manual computation Daniel Bento - 2014
10. NEW COMPUTATION ERA • Babylonian invented the abacus 2400 BC but it was not enought • At 1100 BC first mechanical gear machine was invented in China • At 500 BC Ashtadhyayi was written with 3959 gramar rules BUT! Mechanical computers started to apear in mediaval islamic world, they developed the cryptography and frequency analysis and also worked on programmable machines. In Europe we all know Pascal and Leibniz Machines For the record, the first programmer was an woman, Ada Lovelace Daniel Bento - 2014
11. CHARLES BABBAGE – A NEW ERA The difference engine invented by Charles Babbage • It uses the method of finite diferences to calculated polynomial functions • Numbers: • 25000 parts • 13600 kg • 2,4m tal • Ada Lovelace invented all the features used in actual computer programming Daniel Bento - 2014
12. DIFFERENCE ENGINE – LEGO?! Daniel Bento - 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_u3hpYMySk
13. ENIAC • Electronic Numerical Integrator Analyzer and Computer • First complete electronic computer • Numbers: • 5000 operations per second • 17468 vacuum tubes • 7200 crystal diodes • 1500 relays • 70000 transistors • 10000 capacitors • 30 tons • BIG! Daniel Bento - 2014
14. NOWADAYS 109 gigaFLOPS (Floating Point Operations per Second) in double precision NVidia Graphics Processor can reach more than 500 gigaFLOPS Daniel Bento - 2014
15. IT’S FAST, BUT NOT THE FASTER • Columbia – NASA + SGI • Builded for Space Shuttle, Hurricanes track prediction and physics of supernovas • Capable of 51.87 trilionFLOPS • Numbers: • 10240 processors • 20 Terabytes of memory • 440 Terabytes of online storage • 10 Petabytes of archive Daniel Bento - 2014
16. ALMA CORRELATOR • 134 million processors • Capable of 17 quadrillionFLOPS • Is not in the TOP500 beacause it only has specific functions Daniel Bento - 2014
17. WORKING WITH THIS POWERFULL MACHINES IT’S NOT THIS Daniel Bento - 2014
18. BUT… SOMETIME AGO… Daniel Bento - 2014
19. ALGORITHMS BUBBLE SORT Daniel Bento - 2014
20. FINALLY… NOT SO EXCITING? Daniel Bento - 2014
21. SOME DO THIS… Daniel Bento - 2014
22. OTHERS… Daniel Bento - 2014
23. OR WITH A LOT MORE AMATEUR HARDWARE Daniel Bento - 2014
24. OK… SOME WORK AT ISS… Daniel Bento - 2014
25. OR AT ESO Daniel Bento - 2014
26. SUPERCOMPUTERS ARE NEEDED Daniel Bento - 2014
27. FOR CURIOSITY Daniel Bento - 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BudlaGh1A0o
28. FOR LEARNING… Daniel Bento - 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ssc1GsqHds
29. FOR KNOW WHO YOU ARE Daniel Bento - 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jXVDeUHMSA
30. THANKS FOR LISTENING! QUESTIONS? www.overdestiny.com twitter.com/danielfbento Daniel Bento danielbento@overdestiny.com Daniel Bento - 2014