Scientific Computing Paradigm
John VanZandt · NASA STI Repository (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) · 1994
The usage model of supercomputers for scientific applications, such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD), has changed over the years. Scientific visualization has moved scientists away from looking at numbers to looking at three-dimensional images, which capture the meaning of the data. This change has impacted the system models for computing. This report details the model which is used by scientists at NASA's research centers. 1. This paper was written while the author was an employee of Computer Sciences Corporation, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000. 2 1.0 Introduction Back in the dark ages of computing, all of 10 years ago, scientists viewed computers as machines to perform calculations and produce tables of numbers, much the way science had been done for hundreds of years [1]. Scientists would produce reams of computer paper filled with columns of numbers, which somehow would yield insight into nature. The design of a computer system to support this wor...