Are grids just for science?
Is grid computing just used for science? In a word – no! Grid computing is helping all sorts of people, from musicians to archaeologists, all over the world.
In the humanities, more and more data is becoming ‘digital’, as research is carried out in electronic form, and books, paintings and artefacts are transferred onto computers. However this growth in digital data has caused humanities researchers to encounter a whole host of problems, such as how to store, access and analyse these vast amounts of information.
In response, humanities researchers are turning to grid computing for help.
Currently a whole host of non-science projects use grid computing. A project called ASTRA is bringing long lost musical instruments back to life. By using grid computing techniques, researchers are able to model ancient instruments, and recreate timbres and sounds of notes not heard for centuries.
Underwater, grid computing is poised to help archaeologists discover lost settlements and civilisations while linguists hope grids will help them answer questions such as ‘find all video clips of Tony Blair on the BBC in 2007’, ‘list all uses of “enthusiasm” in 19th century English novels written by women’, or ‘summarise Le Monde of March 17 2008 - in Polish!’
Want to find out more? Read the GridBriefing from GridTalk...
