• Question: How much do you use computer modelling in your work?

    Asked by danm to Arttu, Ceri, James_M, Monica, Philip on 22 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: James M Monk

      James M Monk answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      Quite a lot. We use computer simulations of the detector and of the physics in the collisions to help us understand the results. Many results from theoretical calculations are so complicated that the best way we have of understanding them is for the theorist to encapsulate the result in a simulation. We can then more easily compare the simulation to our actual data to see if the calculation describes the real world.

    • Photo: Arttu Rajantie

      Arttu Rajantie answered on 22 Jun 2011:

      I use quite a lot of computers. The phenomena in the early universe that I am interested in are generally so complicated that one cannot solve the equations by pen and paper, and therefore I have to use supercomputer simulations. However, it is not simply a matter of putting the problem in the computer and waiting for the answer, because these phenomena involve complicated quantum physics which cannot be fully simulated with a classical computer. Therefore one first has to turn the problem into something that our computers can handle.

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