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SWIFT
SWIFTweb
Commits
68776231
Commit
68776231
authored
7 years ago
by
Matthieu Schaller
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Updated the homepage information for the general public
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Updated homepage text for all 3 sections
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68776231
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## What is SWIFT?
SWIFT is a hydrodynamics and gravity code for Astrophysics. What does
that even mean? It is a computer program designed for running on
supercomputers that simulates forces upon matter due to two main
things: gravity and hydrodynamics (forces that arise from fluids such
as viscosity). This turns out to be quite a complicated problem as we
can't build computers large enough to simulate everything down to the
level of individual atoms. This implies we need to re-think the
equations that describe the matter components and how they interact
with each-others. In practice, we must solve the equations that
describe these problems numerically, which requires a lot of computing
power and fast computer code.
SWIFT is a hydrodynamics and gravity code for astrophysics and
cosmology. What does that even mean? It is a computer program designed
for running on supercomputers that simulates forces upon matter due to
two main things: gravity and hydrodynamics (forces that arise from
fluids such as viscosity). The creation and evolution of stars and
black holes is also modelled together with the effects they have on
their surroundings. This turns out to be quite a complicated problem
as we can't build computers large enough to simulate everything down
to the level of individual atoms. This implies that we need to
re-think the equations that describe the matter components and how
they interact with each-others. In practice, we must solve the
equations that describe these problems numerically, which requires a
lot of computing power and fast computer code.
We use SWIFT to run simulations of Astrophysical objects, such as
galaxies or even the whole Universe.
We do this to test theories
galaxies or even the whole Universe. We do this to test theories
about what the Universe is made of and evolved from the Big Bang up to
the present day!
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complete. SWIFT aims to remedy that by choosing to parallelise the
problem in a different way, by using better algorithms and by having a
more modular structure than other codes making it easier for users to
pick and choose what physics they want to include in their simulation.
pick and choose what physical models they want to include in their
simulations.
The way that super-computers are built is not by having one huge
super-fast 'computer', but rather by having lots of regular computers
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sitting and waiting for work, which is just wasted time, electricity
and ultimately money!
One other computer technology that occured in the last decade is the
appearance of so-called vector-instructions. These allow one given
computing core to process not just one number at a time (as in the
past) but up to 16 (or even more on some machines!) in parallel. This
means that a given compute core can solve the equations for 16 stars
(for instance) at a time and not just one. However, exploiting this
capability is hard and requires writing very detailed code. That is
rarely done in other codes but our extra efforts pay off and SWIFT can
solve the same equations as other software in significantly less time!
## What is SPH?
Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) is a method of calculating the
forces between fluid elements (gas or liquids). Let's say that we want
to simulate some water and a wave within it. Even a liter of water has
Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) is a numericla method of
approximating the forces between fluid elements (gas or
liquids). Let's say that we want to simulate some water and a wave
within it. Even a singlle liter of water has
100000000000000000000000000 particles in it. To store that much data
we would require a computer that as 100 trillion times as much storage
space as
*all of the data on the internet*
. It's clear that we need a
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It turns out that we can represent the water by many fewer particles
if we can smooth over the gaps between them efficiently. Smoothed
Particle Hydrodynamics is the technique that we use to do that.
SPH was originally developped to solve problems in astrophysics but is
now a popular tool in industry with applications that affect our
everyday life. Turbines are modelled with this technique to
understand how to harvest as much energy from the wind. The method is
also used to understand how waves and tsunamis affect the shores,
allowing scientists to design effective defence for the population.
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