Millennium Run, Simulating the Universe - The Blue Brain
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On the opposite end of the spectrum is a project called Blue Brain, being conducted by IBM and EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne). Blue Brain is trying to map the human brain down to every last neuron, a task with far smaller dimensions than the last two, but in no way a smaller vision. The project likely obtained the first half of its name by using a modified version of one of IBM’s Blue Gene supercomputers, this model estimated as having a peak processing speed of 22.8 TFLOPS.
The project is starting by devoting two years to simulating the neocortex, the largest part of the brain which is responsible for higher-level thought. The project will then extend into other parts of the brain until a full, working model is created. The amount of detail required for such a simulation calls for all new sorts of algorithms and equations to copy electro-chemical reactions. Again, this simulation is being conducted with the idea that everything happening within your brain is able to be measured, quantified, and broken down to mathematical formulas.
To see the different reactions that they are mapping out, researchers are using lab tests. They inject dye into a neuron, and then watch the reactions that take place. Some information on this is available here. The next step is a matter of turning these relationships and reactions into computer code. In many ways, the scope of this may be larger than something like Millennium Run in the amount of detailed research it requires and the possibilities for applying the research.
IBM and EPFL hope the research will increase our knowledge of how our brains work. Perhaps it could improve our ability to understand, treat, and prevent many mental disorders. It might give insight into how different prescription drugs work and how they could work better.
Perhaps future discoveries in science, physics and cosmology will be led by computer simulations. We might not need to wait for geniuses like Newton and Einstein to be inspired to unravel the principles of the universe, but instead understand our environment though the help of these tests. Of course, simulations require some guiding principle to examine, so we haven’t done away with human intelligence at all.
But as people to this day try to prove and disprove Einstein’s theory of relativity that was created a century ago, computers may provide faster solutions. Supercomputers may make it much quicker to show the insight or fallacies in proposed theories and shed light on the most promising models of the universe and of our minds.
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