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Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2004 11:28 pm
by NAiLs
Amy wrote:I may have to give this one a shot since I haven't been at my PC much recently.
Great! Now you can actually say that your pc is doing something productive instead of sitting and collecting dust :D
LoL... yeah... that's about it. I built my computer back in April (I think) of 2003 and it hasn't gotten a ton of use. I was anticipating a bunch of games to come out, but they never did... yet. I've got a few spare computers laying around too, but those aren't going to get used often. Usually to help me repair peoples computers.
So yeah, I guess I can say my computer is doing something now.
Posted: Fri Sep 03, 2004 6:37 am
by Amy
So have you downloaded it yet? I don't see your name on our team...
Posted: Fri Sep 03, 2004 6:45 am
by Amy
Oh, I was just reading some more on this and discovered something interesting:
It's amazing that not only do proteins self-assemble -- fold -- but they do so amazingly quickly: some as fast as a millionth of a second. While this time is very fast on a person's timescale, it's remarkably long for computers to simulate.
In fact, it takes about a day to simulate a nanosecond (1/1,000,000,000 of a second). Unfortunately, proteins fold on the tens of microsecond timescale (10,000 nanoseconds). Thus, it would take 10,000 CPU days to simulate folding -- i.e. it would take 30 CPU years! That's a long time to wait for one result!
A SOLUTION: DISTRIBUTED DYNAMICS
To solve the protein folding problem, we need to break the microsecond barrier. Our group has developed a new way to simulate protein folding which can break the microsecond barrier by dividing the work between multiple processors in a new way -- with a near linear speed up in the number of processors. Thus, with 1000 processors, we can break the microsecond barrier and help unlock the mystery of how proteins fold.
http://folding.stanford.edu/science.html
Posted: Fri Sep 03, 2004 11:30 am
by NAiLs
Amy wrote:So have you downloaded it yet? I don't see your name on our team...
Going to later this afternoon! :D I've been busy the last couple days.