GridPP Magic Cube Gallery
This is a gallery of the images used by GridPP on the magic cubes. It includes explanations of the individual images and what they are or represent.
There is a full explanation of Grids and GridPP on our introductory page here.
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The Large Hadron Collider is a large physics project buried 100 metres underground on the French/Swiss border at CERN. It is based in a 27Km long tunnel and this picture is an artist's impression of the tunnel with an aerial view of the CERN site in the background. The red ring is marking where the tunnel is. Click the image to see a larger version. |
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The LHC will propel particles, called hadrons, around the ring at speeds close to that of light. When they collide they will break down into other particles and recreate the conditions in the very early universe just after the big bang. The detectors, named ATLAS, ALICE, LHCb, CMS, LHCf and TOTEM, positioned around the LHC ring at various points will examine these collisions. This image is a simulation of a collision of two protons in which a microscopic-black-hole was produced and recorded by the ATLAS detector. |
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How physicists understand the world is explained in the Standard Model. It is the theory which describes almost all the known fundamental interactions between the particles that make up all matter. This image is a table of the particles which make up matter (quarks and leptons) and those which generate the forces (gauge bosons). The Higgs Boson is a particle which is predicted by the theory to give particles mass but has not been seen yet, it is hoped that this is one of the many things that the LHC will prove or disprove. |
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The Internet is the physical network which connects the world's computers, satellites and everything else that is online. The Grid is a tool, just like the Worldwide Web, built upon the Internet to help scientists across the globe do large calculations quickly and easily. GridPP is building part of the Grid to help physicists working on the LHC compute the 15 Petabytes* of information that will be generated every year. |
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Six experiments will be positioned around the LHC's ring. They are ATLAS, ALICE, CMS, LHCb, LHCf and TOTEM, they vary in size with ATLAS being one of the biggest. ATLAS will be 5 storeys high, 46 metres long and 25 metres in diameter, and will weigh about 7,000 tonnes. This picture is of ATLAS during construction in May 2005 before it was filled in with all the technology and the ends closed up. Click the image to see a larger version, note the man at the bottom of the image. |
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GridPP's main effort goes into developing the software (middleware) that runs the Grid, maintaining and monitoring the hardware in the UK and ensuring compatibility with other sites around the world. However we also develop other tools which grow out of this work and one of them is the Real Time Monitor(RTM). This is a stand alone programme displaying a rotatable globe and shows the activity on the Grid as it is happening. The RTM allows you to spin the globe and zoom in and out on sites around the world and look at what jobs are being done at each site. This screenshot is of the RTM with work being transferred around Europe and America. You can get different versions of the RTM and more information here. |
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GridPP brings together all the particle physics departments in the UK to help contribute to the effort needed to build the Grid so the data from the LHC can be processed. This map shows the location of the 20 institutions that make up GridPP in the UK. They are:
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While the Grid is the software/middleware/other tools which control the processing of information around the world it would not be much use without some extra hardware running these systems. The institutions which make up GridPP have invested in a lot of computer hardware at their individual sites. This is a picture of the business end of some of the hardware that is controlled by GridPP's Grid. |
* = 1 Megabyte (1MB) = A digital photo
1 Gigabyte (1GB) = 1000MB
5GB = A DVD movie
1 Terabyte (1TB)= 1000GB equivalent to World annual book production
1 Petabyte (1PB)= 1000TB equivalent to Annual production of raw data by one LHC experiment
1 Exabyte (1EB)= 1000 PB where 3EB = Total world annual information production
All images on this page are copyright GridPP or CERN unless otherwise stated, all rights are reserved and if you wish to use them please contact Neasan O'Neill (n.oneill@qmul.ac.uk)
Last modified Tue 24 February 2009 . View page history
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