GPUs in a computational physics course

In an introductory computational physics class of the type that many of us give, time constraints lead to hard choices on topics. Everyone likes to include their own research in such a class but an overview of many areas is paramount. Parallel programming algorithms using MPI is one important topic....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of physics. Conference series 2017-10, Vol.905 (1), p.12017
Main Authors: Adler, Joan, Nissim, Gal, Kiswani, Ahmad
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algorithms
Computational physics
Parallel programming
Physics
Queuing theory
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Summary:In an introductory computational physics class of the type that many of us give, time constraints lead to hard choices on topics. Everyone likes to include their own research in such a class but an overview of many areas is paramount. Parallel programming algorithms using MPI is one important topic. Both the principle and the need to break the "fear barrier" of using a large machine with a queuing system via ssh must be sucessfully passed on. Due to the plateau in chip development and to power considerations future HPC hardware choices will include heavy use of GPUs. Thus the need to introduce these at the level of an introductory course has arisen. Just as for parallel coding, explanation of the benefits and simple examples to guide the hesitant first time user should be selected. Several student projects using GPUs that include how-to pages were proposed at the Technion. Two of the more successful ones were lattice Boltzmann and a finite element code, and we present these in detail.
ISSN:1742-6588
1742-6596
DOI:10.1088/1742-6596/905/1/012017