On 26–30 June 2005 at the Grand Hyatt on Union Square in San Francisco several hundred computational
scientists from around the world came together for what can certainly be described as a celebration
of computational science. Scientists from the SciDAC Program and scientists from other agencies
and nations were joined by applied mathematicians and computer scientists to highlight the many
successes in the past year where computation has led to scientific discovery in a variety of fields: lattice
quantum chromodynamics, accelerator modeling, chemistry, biology, materials science, Earth and climate
science, astrophysics, and combustion and fusion energy science. Also highlighted were the advances in
numerical methods and computer science, and the multidisciplinary collaboration cutting across science,
mathematics, and computer science that enabled these discoveries.
The SciDAC Program was conceived and funded by the US Department of Energy Office of Science.
It is the Office of Science's premier computational science program founded on what is arguably the
perfect formula: the priority and focus is science and scientific discovery, with the understanding that the
full arsenal of `enabling technologies' in applied mathematics and computer science must be brought to
bear if we are to have any hope of attacking and ultimately solving today's computational Grand Challenge
problems. The SciDAC Program has been in existence for four years, and many of the computational
scientists funded by this program will tell you that the program has given them the hope of addressing
their scientific problems in full realism for the very first time. Many of these scientists will also tell you
that SciDAC has also fundamentally changed the way they do computational science.
We begin this volume with one of DOE's great traditions, and core missions: energy research. As we
will see, computation has been seminal to the critical advances that have been made in this arena. Of
course, to understand our world, whether it is to understand its very nature or to understand it so as to
control it for practical application, will require explorations on all of its scales. Computational science
has been no less an important tool in this arena than it has been in the arena of energy research. From
explorations of quantum chromodynamics, the fundamental theory that describes how quarks make up
the protons and neutrons of which we are composed, to explorations of the complex biomolecules that
are the building blocks of life, to explorations of some of the most violent phenomena in our universe and
of the Universe itself, computation has provided not only significant insight, but often the only means by
which we have been able to explore these complex, multicomponent systems and by which we have been
able to achieve scientific discovery and understanding.
While our ultimate target remains scientific discovery, it certainly can be said that at a fundamental
level the world is mathematical. Equations ultimately govern the evolution of the systems of interest to
us, be they physical, chemical, or biological systems. The development and choice of discretizations
of these underlying equations is often a critical deciding factor in whether or not one is able to model
such systems stably, faithfully, and practically, and in turn, the algorithms to solve the resultant discrete
equations are the complementary, critical ingredient in the recipe to model the natural world. The use
of parallel computing platforms, especially at the TeraScale, and the trend toward even larger numbers
of processors, continue to present significant challenges in the development and implementation of these
algorithms.
Computational scientists often speak of their `workflows'. A workflow, as the name suggests, is the sum
total of all complex and interlocking tasks, from simulation set up, execution, and I/O, to visualization and
scientific discovery, through which the advancement in our understanding of the natural world is realized.
For the computational scientist, enabling such workflows presents myriad, signiflcant challenges, and it
is computer scientists that are called upon at such times to address these challenges. Simulations are
currently generating data at the staggering rate of tens of TeraBytes per simulation, over the course of
days. In the next few years, these data generation rates are expected to climb exponentially to hundreds
of TeraBytes per simulation, performed over the course of months. The output, management, movement,
analysis, and visualization of these data will be our key to unlocking the scientific discoveries buried within
the data. And there is no hope of generating such data to begin with, or of scientific discovery, without
stable computing platforms and a sufficiently high and sustained performance of scientific applications
codes on them.
Thus, scientific discovery in the realm of computational science at the TeraScale and beyond will
occur at the intersection of science, applied mathematics, and computer science. The SciDAC Program
was constructed to mirror this reality, and the pages that follow are a testament to the efficacy of such an
approach.
We would like to acknowledge the individuals on whose talents and efforts the success of SciDAC
2005 was based. Special thanks go to Betsy Riley for her work on the SciDAC 2005 Web site and meeting
agenda, for lining up our corporate sponsors, for coordinating all media communications, and for her
efforts in processing the proceedings contributions, to Sherry Hempfling for coordinating the overall
SciDAC 2005 meeting planning, for handling a significant share of its associated communications, and
for coordinating with the ORNL Conference Center and Grand Hyatt, to Angela Harris for producing
many of the documents and records on which our meeting planning was based and for her efforts in
coordinating with ORNL Graphics Services, to Angie Beach of the ORNL Conference Center for her
efforts in procurement and setting up and executing the contracts with the hotel, and to John Bui and John
Smith for their superb wireless networking and A/V set up and support. We are grateful for the relentless
efforts of all of these individuals, their remarkable talents, and for the joy of working with them during
this past year. They were the cornerstones of SciDAC 2005. Thanks also go to Kymba A'Hearn and
Patty Boyd for on-site registration, Brittany Hagen for administrative support, Bruce Johnston for netcast
support, Tim Jones for help with the proceedings and Web site, Sherry Lamb for housing and registration,
Cindy Lathum for Web site design, Carolyn Peters for on-site registration, and Dami Rich for graphic
design. And we would like to express our appreciation to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, especially
Jeff Nichols, the Argonne National Laboratory, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and to our
corporate sponsors, Cray, IBM, Intel, and SGI, for their support.
We would like to extend special thanks also to our plenary speakers, technical speakers, poster
presenters, and panelists for all of their efforts on behalf of SciDAC 2005 and for their remarkable
achievements and contributions. We would like to express our deep appreciation to Lali Chatterjee,
Graham Douglas and Margaret Smith of Institute of Physics Publishing, who worked tirelessly in order
to provide us with this finished volume within two months, which is nothing short of miraculous.
Finally, we wish to express our heartfelt thanks to Michael Strayer, SciDAC Director, whose vision
it was to focus SciDAC 2005 on scientific discovery, around which all of the excitement we experienced
revolved, and to our DOE SciDAC program managers, especially Fred Johnson, for their support, input,
and help throughout.