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Article: Heavy weather: from the cutting edge of computing, the Earth Simulator is taking scientists to new frontiers: the planet's most powerful computer seems straight out of Stanley Kubrick's eerie classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Yet the story the Earth Simulator is telling may be even more disturbing.
- Article from:
- Japan Inc.
- Article date:
- November 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Japan Inc. Communications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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AKIRA KAGEYAMA IS STANDING at the center of the Earth. Around him, particles of light cascade, aquamarine vortices churn and arrows flow like schools of fish in a slow dance.
This is Kageyama's conception of the engine behind our planet's magnetic fields. He thumbs a button and another particle comes into being, tracing helical convection currents through the mantle as the perspective soars to a point several kilometers above the North Pole. Suddenly he flicks a laser wand and the mesh sphere disappears. The virtual reality chamber's walls go completely blank.
"The human eye is a nice tool to extract information from images," Kageyama notes as he removes ...