Imagine an equation so complex it could take four days to complete, even with the help of a computer. But with $2,000 and the support of the University of Idaho physics department, two graduate students created a solution to their problem.
Larz White and Christopher Mirabzadeh designed and created a 30-processor super computer as a side project to help their nuclear theory equations take less time.
“Originally when dealing with nuclear theory calculations, it can take up to four days to complete one equation because of the number conducting and huge sums,” White said. “So we decided to create a cluster of computers that could formulate our equations in less than half the time a regular computer takes.”
To create this ultimate computer, White said they have five standard desktop hard drives and each of the computers has a 6-core processor inside of them. The combination gives them the power of 30-core processors, he said.
“We knew creating this would really help in speeding up our nuclear theory calculations, so we talked to the UI physics department and they gave us the official permission,” White said.
White said he and Mirabzadeh worked on the computer, which they named “Dirac” after the famous physicist Paul Dirac, since the beginning of the year and just completed it a couple weeks ago.
“To make sure our invention would work, last year we created a makeshift super computer, out of 30 old computers linked together,” White said. “After we were sure it would work, we started on the real one.”
One concern about Dirac is the possibility of overheating since the processors are running at 100 percent, 24 hours a day, White said. To make sure it doesn’t get too hot, large fans, both on the inside and outside, surround the computers. Francesca Sammarruca, White’s adviser, said she is proud of everything these graduate students did on their own time, and as an extra project that wasn’t school related.
“Since we are theorists, we use large scale calculations and stimulations,” Sammarruca said. “And with the creation of this computer, it helps to have high performance computers to do our nuclear physics theory equations.”
The 30-processor cluster has improved the group’s calculation speed, Sammarruca said. The finished project is a fantastic addition and resourceful in the project they work on, she said.
White said the UI physics department backed his and Mirabzadeh’s idea completely and that support was a great help to the project’s success.
“We really wanted to thank the support of the UI physics department,” White said. “Chris and I came up with the idea and they were fully supportive. We explained to them that we needed to build something like this super computer, in order to do this (nuclear physic calculations).”
White and Mirabzadeh created this multi-processor computer for about $2,000, which White said was cheap compared to the real super computers that cost around $40,000 to create. He said he is excited to use the cluster of computers to improve the speed of his future calculations.