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
******************************************************* 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.
******************************************************* 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.