Saturday, January 23, 2010
philosophy of science
Hmm, so my interest in Nancy Cartwright isn't so idiosyncratic after all perhaps.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
wreckage?
I look around accelerator physics and see that there are so many tried and aborted projects.
I think of this process of working on an open source project, and I see its been tried before with the UAL framework. Every idea one has has already been tried and failed.
Perhaps I should try to put a more positive spin on this, and list the open source beam physics projects. We have Zgoubi, and the previously mentioned UAL. Then there is XAL, which is an offshoot of UAL developed for the SNS. Each of these is rather project related, I believe.
UAL is an attempt at generality, but from a physics perspective seems to be more about absorbing existing codes, than developing new algorithms. It is used in the RHIC online model.
Also, I think beam physics should look to other fields such as HEP, with GEANT, and on the synchrotron optics side with codes such as shadow.
I think of this process of working on an open source project, and I see its been tried before with the UAL framework. Every idea one has has already been tried and failed.
Perhaps I should try to put a more positive spin on this, and list the open source beam physics projects. We have Zgoubi, and the previously mentioned UAL. Then there is XAL, which is an offshoot of UAL developed for the SNS. Each of these is rather project related, I believe.
UAL is an attempt at generality, but from a physics perspective seems to be more about absorbing existing codes, than developing new algorithms. It is used in the RHIC online model.
Also, I think beam physics should look to other fields such as HEP, with GEANT, and on the synchrotron optics side with codes such as shadow.
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