Prepare for: 'The Grid'

[SgtM]

Anyone else see this?




'The Grid' Could Soon Make the Internet Obsolete

The Internet could soon be made obsolete. The scientists who pioneered it have now built a lightning-fast replacement capable of downloading entire feature films within seconds.

At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, “the grid” will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds.

The latest spin-off from Cern, the particle physics centre that created the web, the grid could also provide the kind of power needed to transmit holographic images; allow instant online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players; and offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call.

David Britton, professor of physics at Glasgow University and a leading figure in the grid project, believes grid technologies could “revolutionise” society. “With this kind of computing power, future generations will have the ability to collaborate and communicate in ways older people like me cannot even imagine,” he said.


Full story here:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,347212,00.html

[crenn]

It was in my train newspaper today. Great concept... question is, will it work?

[Bopher]

probably but will be expensive. Broadband will cost what dialup does now and we'll pay 2x-3x more for this grid. Would be nice to see stuff like in Back to the Future with the video phones and no real ping issues on the internet gaming.

[Drum Thumper]

Great concept... question is, will it work?

Considering it's in use right now...I would say yes.

Interesting article SgtM. I wonder how long it will be before rural areas will see it.

[Quakken]

The instant online gaming is what I am looking forward to. Sure, huge amounts of data transfered is cool, but an exclusive extremely quick online gaming thing that kiddies can't afford? If i could afford it, it would be cool. But I can't, so it won't.

[Trace]

Jeeze, this sounds amazing. Dedicated fiber-optics. Sounds like this has potential.

[crenn]

Considering it's in use right now...I would say yes.

Interesting article SgtM. I wonder how long it will be before rural areas will see it.
I'm more talking about it working in the real world. What kind of cost will be involved etc. But the concept is great.... in Australia we're having issues with getting everywhere above 8mbps..... not to mention we have download limits.

[mtekk]

Researchers used the grid to analyse 140m compounds - a task that would have taken a standard internet-linked PC 420 years.
The article confuses computing power with Internet speed, the author obviously doesn't know what he/she is talking about (or is dumbing things down way too much). :dead: At some points in the article it sounds like the Grid is just a network, then in other points it sounds like a large distributed computing network. It leads you to believe that if your PC was attached to it, it would be able to find a drug to fight malaria faster than the 420 years it'd take to do on the Internet. Naturally, several IBM blue-gene computers on a fiber based network will vastly outperform you average Core 2 Duo connected via a DSL connection (which technically isn't directly connecting to the Internet). True, to a point speeding up the interconnect will speed up a calculation, but the speed of the nodes becomes increasingly important.

[J-Roc]

I had a little bit of a post going here. Peanuts compared to the info on wiki.

Here's what could happen with the LHC at CERN:


Concerns have been raised that performing collisions at previously unexplored energies might unleash new and disastrous phenomena. These include the production of micro black holes, and strangelets. Such issues were raised in connection with the RHIC accelerator, both in the media[14][15] and in the scientific community;[16] however, after detailed studies, scientists reached such conclusions as "beyond reasonable doubt, heavy-ion experiments at RHIC will not endanger our planet"[17] and that there is "powerful empirical evidence against the possibility of dangerous strangelet production."[18]

One simple argument against such fears is that collisions at these energies (and higher) have been happening in nature for billions of years apparently without hazardous effects, as ultra-high-energy cosmic rays impact Earth's atmosphere and other bodies in the universe.[19] A concern against this cosmic-ray argument is that, if dangerous strangelets or micro black holes were created at LHC, a proportion would have less than the Earth's escape velocity (of 11.2km/s), and therefore would be captured by the Earth's gravitational field, whereas those created by high-energy cosmic rays would leave the planet at high speed, due to the laws of conservation of momentum at relativistic speeds[citation needed].

CERN's review concludes, after detailed analysis, that "there is no basis for any conceivable threat" from strangelets, black holes, or monopoles.[20][21] However, the concern about the verity of Hawking radiation was not addressed, and another study was commissioned by CERN in 2007 for publication on CERN's web-site by the end of 2007.[citation needed]

The risk of a doomsday scenario was indicated by Sir Martin Rees, with respect to the RHIC, as being a one in fifty million chance,[22] and by Professor Frank Close, with regards to (dangerous) strangelets, that 'the chance of this happening is like you winning the major prize on the lottery 3 weeks in succession; the problem is that people believe it is possible to win the lottery 3 weeks in succession'.[23] Accurate assessments of these risks are impossible due to the currently incomplete, or even hypothetically flawed, standard model of particle physics (see also a list of unsolved problems in physics).




Micro Black Holes
Although the Standard Model of particle physics predicts that LHC energies are far too low to create black holes, some extensions of the Standard Model posit the existence of extra spatial dimensions, in which it would be possible to create micro black holes at the LHC[24][25][26] at a rate on the order of one per second. According to the standard calculations these are harmless because they would quickly decay by Hawking radiation. The concern from opposing civil society movements[27] is that, among other disputed factors, Hawking radiation (which is still debated[28]) is not yet an experimentally-tested or naturally observed phenomenon. Thus, the above mentioned opponents to LHC consider that micro black holes produced in a terrestrial laboratory might not decay as rapidly as calculated, or might even not be prone to decay and, if unable to rapidly evaporate, they could start interacting, grow larger and potentially be disastrous to Earth itself.[29]

and for added assurance that technology will kill us all:


Strangelets
Main article: Strangelet
Strangelets are a hypothetical form of strange matter that contains roughly equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks and are more stable than ordinary nuclei. If strangelets can actually exist, and if they were produced at LHC, they could conceivably initiate a runaway fusion process (reminiscent of the fictional ice-nine) in which all the nuclei in the planet were converted to strange matter, similar to a strange star.


God help us all...

[Okele]

I had a little bit of a post going here. Peanuts compared to the info on wiki.

Here's what could happen with the LHC at CERN:





and for added assurance that technology will kill us all:



God help us all...


Who cares about all that mumbo jumbo. If 2 in the pink one in the stink is delivered to my tv in full HD glory in less then 2 seconds, Im not gonna complain. (for those that dont know this is an inside joke!)

[J-Roc]

You cant bowl with a black hole. or maybe you can...

[Bopher]

You cant bowl with a black hole. or maybe you can...

You can, but the ball return takes FOREVER!!!

(sorry 3am here)

[Drum Thumper]

You cant bowl with a black hole. or maybe you can...

It'd be a strike every time. Just too bad you wouldn't be around to see it.



You can, but the ball return takes FOREVER!!!

(sorry 3am here)

Depends. Is the ball return parallel to the event horizon? Hit the horizon just so, and you're golden.

[Bopher]

touche

[Quakken]

I know nothing of quantum and black hole physics, but I could beat you at monopoly, so I don't mind.

[halcyonforever]

My favorite is that they refer to this as a "doomsday machine" that just makes my day...

And makes me want to find a way to steal it and extort the world...

[J-Roc]

You cant bowl with a black hole. or maybe you can...

do you guys realize that was a sexual enuendo? I hope so because your reply's made me bust a gut from laughing so hard.

back on topic...

your internet speed isnt going to matter if the earth is vapourized in the process.

[Bopher]

At least the internet traffic will be light.8)

[Aero]

Wow, great article.

Plus, this whole thread gets a thumbs up for being one of the more random threads I have ever seen on these boards (also has the most bad jokes) Good Job Fellas!:up:

[chaksq]

Ok would someone please clarify to me the connection between the "grid" and black holes. I get that they are creating it to help them study particle physics but I don't how just using the grid involves black holes.

[crenn]

The grid itself isn't to do with black holes, it's what the grid is going to be taking data from that is the problem.

[Quakken]

I creates a black hole of knowledge (the internet the way it is now creates a brown dwarf of knowledge, the supercharged grid goes all the way to black hole.)

There's a clarification for ya.

[Eclecticos]

I don't like the sound of this.

[Ichbin]

Its what they are studying within particle physics.

the higgs boson. Its the particle that gives matter its mass. Theyre trying to prove a theory pretty much.

So black holes have a lot to do with mass and gravity.

[J-Roc]

The basis for the grid looks like a massive folding project though.

[NightrainSrt4]

If you want to see why CERN is using the grid take a look at the article At the Heart of All Matter: The hunt for the god particle in the March 2008 National Geographic.

The article really doesn't discuss the grid, but discusses the particle accelerator, the higgs, and such. Pretty interesting article, and should explain a bit more about the subject, albeit with a lot of article extending prose NatGeo is known for ;)

[Ichbin]

.... albeit with a lot of article extending prose NatGeo is known for ;)

"Yes the Higgs is theoritically known to produce mass in matter. LOOK AT THE MONKEY!"

[chaksq]

Ok that makes sense. I kinda though it was what they were studying that was the concern, just some of the posts here seemed to confuse that a bit.

Another thought, the grid seems to be at least for now like a second internet but disconnected from the existing internet. So either their would be no access to the current internet, basically all the sites currently hosted and accessed through the internet, or it would be channeled in through routers but not actually be any faster than what we have now. Obviously most big sites and corporate sites would be hosted for the grid but smaller site and personal sites might not be able to afford hosting on the grid.

[J-Roc]

The reason they say its faster is because its built with up to date components for massive bandwidth and speed. The internet we currently use is mostly run off machines designed in the 80's & 90's for telecom and cant supply high enough throughput in large bandwidth's for individual customers.

I see the grid as your own personal optic line insted of todays broadband or adsl connections. I believe thats the intent anyway.

[halcyonforever]

Basically this is two sperate topics, the Grid and the Particle collider. The common thread is that they were developed by the same people and will go live on the same day.

The Grid seems to be someone finding a use for all the dark fiber that was layed 10 years ago to create a new networking structure.

I am still waiting for the Shadowrun esqe matrix.

[Drum Thumper]

http://news.cnet.com/The-15-petabyte-network-and-the-atom-smasher/2100-1008_3-6243726.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-5&subj=news

It's less than a month away.