Connections between computation and the study of celestial events have
a long history, but ever-increasing improvements in computer hardware
and software are actually transforming astrophysics. I'll begin with a
description of why computation is crucial for the solution of a
variety of problems at the forefront of astronomy and astrophysics.
I'll next outline the challenge of developing, testing, and
implementing numerical algorithms for the investigation of these
problems on modern high-performance computer systems. And, finally,
I'll conclude with the importance of training future scientists in
scientific computation, and the need for tools to handle the
complexity of its codes.
James Stone is Professor in the Department of Astrophysical Sciences
at Princeton University and Director, Princeton Institute for
Computational Science and Engineering. A native of Canada, he studied
in both Canada and the US before earning his PhD in astronomy from the
University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) in 1990. He was a postdoc
at UIUC, and a member of the faculty at the University of Maryland and
at Cambridge University, before he moved to his present position at
Princeton in 2003. Prof. Stone uses numerical methods to study
nonlinear and multidimensional fluid dynamics in astrophysical
systems, such as accretion flows onto black holes. The recipient of a
number of honors, in 2011 he was awarded the Rahman Prize for
Computational Physics by the American Physical Society.
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