Research teams from around the world are preparing to use Mira, Argonne’s new petaflops supercomputer, to tackle the most challenging problems in science and engineering today. What happens when a star explodes? Can we find alternative fuel sources? How hot will the greenhouse world be? These problems cannot be addressed any other way because of their sheer size or complexity. Mira will be used to compress time and explore many possible solutions to issues related to energy and the environment. It will enable the prototyping and testing of construction materials before they are ever physically built and will help search for effective vaccines to deadly infections.
On March 14, Argonne’s Pete Beckman will give a talk about how math and supercomputers are accelerating scientific discovery as part of Argonne’s public lecture series Argonne OutLoud. Dr. Beckman is the co-director of the Northwestern-Argonne Institute for Science and Engineering.