Scientists love gaming consoles instead of super computer, Sony PS3 and Nintendo Wii in particular

16 Sony PS3 consoles used instead of one super computer to simulate two black holes merging is one reason why scientists love gaming consoles. We know that gaming consoles are getting more and more powerful everyday and they are easily programmable as research computers, scientists are in fact finding real world applications for them every day.

The Sony PS3 and Nintendo Wii in particular can function as great scientific tools, Professor Peter Coveney of University College London said “There is no doubt that the entertainment industry is helping to drive the direction of high performance computational science,”

Apparently a single high-precision simulation can sometimes cost more than 5,000 hours on the TeraGrid supercomputers. For the same cost, you can build your own supercomputer using PS3s. It works just as well, has no long wait times and can be used over and over again, indefinitely,”

It has been know for surgeons to use the Wii’s cheap motion sensing technology and how the Wii has been used for rehabilitation for recovering surgery patients and as an aid in Parkinson’s therapy.

It is truly amazing how far gaming consoles have come over the years, I man come on can you see the Atari being the consoles of all consoles to achieve the above?

Hey kids go and tell mum and dad that you need a gaming console because scientists say they are very good indeed.

Source – Telegraph