Talk:Worldwide LHC Computing Grid

Early comment
I have rewritten this article as it is essentially a copy paste of a times online article, which isn't cool. It is important for this item to stay around though, its an incredibly important piece of science. I'm just leaving it as a sentence or 2 for right now. -Hellkyte

Seems fairly notatable, its a large scale scientific project, lots of press. I'm removing the notability tag.Ethyr (talk) 18:47, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

After reviewing the first reference, I changed "1 gigabit" to "1 gigabyte," as the reference says "1GB per second." Note: Gb (gigabit) is not the same as GB (gigabyte). JMacalinao (talk) 01:51, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Data speeds
The rambling about the speed is ridiculous. I removed the whole irrelevant blop of crap. Discuss and argue here instead of on the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.248.255.250 (talk) 18:26, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Confusion and/or Hype About Purported Data Speeds
Recently, there has been wide spread media coverage and a huge number of articles and documents that have mentioned the number 10,000 as the ratio for comparing the speed of "the Grid" to the Internet. Accordingly, most of the six references cited in the subject Wikipedia article reference this number as well. For a better perspective, I Google’d "'the grid' +CERN +10,000" and received over 14,000 responses.

However, when I attempted to establish a perspective on the origin of this number, I found that this number appears to have originated as a comparison of the speed of “the Grid” as compared to the speed of a standard broadband connection, which is typically between 1 and 6 Mb/s. Using the lower-end of the broadband speed range for comparison, this would establish the speed of the Grid to be around 10 Gb/s (1 Mb/s times 10,000 equals 10 Gb/s). Accordingly, this value is in reasonable agreement with the speed provided in the subject article, stated to be "1 gigabyte per second."

However, although a speed of 10 Gb/s is about 10,000 times faster than the lower limit of broadband, it is not 10,000 times faster than the Internet backbone or core-link speeds. According to the Wikipedia article titled "Core Router," in 2007 core router speeds reached 10 Gb/s with some links being operated at 40 Gb/s. This equates present core speeds being one to four times faster than the Grid and not 10,000 times slower, as could be mistakenly concluded from these articles. Accordingly, it would appear that the significance of the the Grid is that it is capable of transmitting data at speeds around 10 Gb/s over extemely long distances.

BillinSanDiego (talk) 04:51, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I completely agree. My brother showed me this article and mentioned some of the hype around it and I scoffed when I saw the "10,000 times faster" part, especially with the way it was worded. I've edited the page to better explain things. If someone wants thinks it needs to be clarified better, be my guest. Bobbias (talk) 18:24, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

GB != Gb
See slide 26 of "LCG TDR presentation at the Open LHCC Session". That shows throughput to tier 1 as about 800 MB / sec. That implies that the ceiling is (order of magnitude) 1GByte/sec, meaning 10GBit/sec.

This is why I changed the "dedicated 10GB/sec" to "10Gb/sec" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.216.200.10 (talk) 19:45, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Our style seems to use "10 Gbit/s" to avoid confusion. W Nowicki (talk) 23:28, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Proposed Addition to LHC Computing Grid
''The following is suggested text for an additional section to the Wikipedia article. Any comments would be appreciated.''

2008 Media Coverage Confusing

In 2008 there was widespread media coverage that reported that the LHC Computing Grid was 10,000 times faster than the Internet. Depending on how this reported information was worded, the comparison ranged from being reasonably accurate (but possibly misleading) to being terribly misleading. In either respect, it was a potential cause for confusion. Apparently, the number 10,000 appears to have originated from a comparison of the speed of the LHC Computing Grid to the speed of a typical or standard broadband connection to the Internet, which is speed that a typical broadband user connects his or her computer to the internet. And, although many articles stated correctly that the LHC Computing Grid was 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, many articles stated that the LHC Computing Grid was 10,000 times faster than the Internet, or even stated that the Internet was simply becoming 10,000 times faster, which was simply not true.

A typical broadband connection in 2008 was between 1 and 6 Mb/s. By comparison, the LHC Computing Grid has been reported to be around 10 Gb/s or 1 GB/s when stated in gigabytes per second rather than gigabits per second. (Note that there are typically eight bits per byte thereby making eight gigabits per gigabyte.) However, although a speed of 10 Gb/s is about 10,000 times faster than the lower limit of a broadband connection to the Internet, it is not 10,000 times faster than the Internet backbone known as core-link speeds. Accordingly, in 2007 core router speeds reached 10 Gb/s with some links being operated at 40 Gb/s. This equates present 2007 core speeds being one to four times faster than the LCH Computing Grid and not 10,000 times slower, as could be mistakenly concluded from these articles. Accordingly, it would appear that the significance of the Grid is that it is capable of transmitting data at speeds around 10 Gb/s over extremely long distances.

Bill Wolf (talk) 02:54, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The section you propose adding has no references and appears to be largely OR Nil Einne (talk) 15:52, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Right, what I did instead was cite one of the hyped-up 2008 articles, and mention a more qualitative quote that shows how absurd the speculation was. By now 10 Gigabit Ethernet for example, is reasonably common in a data center. W Nowicki (talk) 00:05, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

"Launched"?
I think we should avoid idioms. The thing was not strapped to a rocket and sent into space. The project seems to have started around 2001, got funding in 2002, and the 2008 was "ready for data". But need better sources than dead "cafe" pages. W Nowicki (talk) 00:21, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Inconsistences
Hi folks, this article needs to be rewritten, it has very little information (check here for more) and some references are dead or point to msn.

Also, this sentence: "The LHC [...] was designed to prove or disprove the existence of the Higgs boson" is false, the Higgs boson hunting was just part of a bigger picture.

I know, I could edit the page. But I'm now a physicist and my english is terryble. -- Rafael — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.136.19.55 (talk) 11:12, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on Worldwide LHC Computing Grid. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Attempted to fix sourcing for http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article3689881.ece
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080526104330/http://gridcafe.web.cern.ch/gridcafe/animations/LHCdata/LHCdata.html to http://gridcafe.web.cern.ch/gridcafe/animations/LHCdata/LHCdata.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 16:14, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Worldwide LHC Computing Grid. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080526104330/http://gridcafe.web.cern.ch/gridcafe/animations/LHCdata/LHCdata.html to http://gridcafe.web.cern.ch/gridcafe/animations/LHCdata/LHCdata.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 21:32, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Hello,while reading this, I noticed the link to reference 10 is now broken ope that helps. Bicyclic (talk) 08:37, 15 July 2023 (UTC)