Firstly, there are a couple of computing talks in Oxford this week
some of you might be interested in attending:
This Tuesday (25th Nov) Richard Brent is speaking on Primality
Testing, and in particular about the new test which hit the
headlines last year (the first deterministic polynomial-time
primality test). http://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/news/primality.html
For many years mathematicians have searched for a fast and reliable
primality test. This is especially relevant nowadays, as the RSA
public-key cryptosystem requires very large primes in order to
generate secure keys. Recently Agrawal, Kayal and Saxena found a
deterministic polynomial-time primality test. Their algorithm will
be described, some improvements by Bernstein and Lenstra will be
mentioned, and why this is not the end of the story will be
explained.
8.15pm, Maths Institute, St. Giles (Keble Rd corner).
Cost GBP 2 incl. refreshments.
Organised by OU Invariant Society
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The Screensaver, Lifesaver Project
Professor W. Graham Richards CBE
Chairman of Chemistry, University of Oxford
Wednesday 26th November, 8.15pm
Over 2 million Personal Computers from over 200 countries are being
harnessed to screen a database of some billions of small molecules
as potential drugs. The grid project provides an effective 100
teraflop machine which is more powerful than the biggest super
computer. An added bonus has been the involvement of the general
public in a real scientific project.
Inorganic Chemistry Lab, South Parks Rd.
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~science/sci_map.gif
Cost GBP 1 incl. refreshments.
Organised by OU Scientific Society
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Finally, our monthly OxLUG meeting on Sunday 7th December
Linux Supercomputing in Oxford - Dr Jon Lockley
The Oxford Supercomputing Centre (OSC) is a central resource for
Oxford academics in need of high performance computing. The OSC's
clustering hardware and software will be described and used to
illustrate design decisions for clusters. Finally I'll outline what
impact we expect the new 64bit chipsets and the 2.6 kernel may have
for high performance computing.
Comlab, 6.30pm
http://web.comlab.ox.ac.uk/oucl/about/directions.html
Free.
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Advance notice:
Sunday 1st February 2004 - Dick Morrell
A talk on Linux Device Creation and also consolidation of Linux
vendors and the muddled path ahead.
We're still seeking ideas for January's meeting, Sun 4th Jan.
There'll be a pubmeet on the 12th November at The Bookbinders, Jericho. As
well as the pubmeet some of us will be meeting beforehand for food, this
may also be useful for those of you don't know how to get to the
Bookbinders. Current suggestions for food have been Cafe Orient on George
Street and a Thai restraunt on High Street but we're still open to offers.
Meeting for food at 7pm, meet at the bookbinders at 8pm. If you're
interested in joining me for food, please get in touch before Wednesday so
I know who to expect and can arrange to find you.
James
--
http://jamesd.ukgeeks.co.uk/
