With the annual gathering of the best minds in supercomputing rapidly approaching, conversations are turning toward what SC14 will offer in terms of keynotes. The event committee recently announced that famed theoretical physicist and string theorist, Brian Greene, would present the centerpiece address, joining the ranks of other scientists who have opened the conference, including Dr. Michio Kaku.

SC14’s keynote has authored a number of bestsellers, including The Elegant Universe, Icarus at the Edge of Time, The Hidden Reality and appeared on a number of science-related programs on PBS and other networks. While this is what he is known for in mainstream circles, his important research work in theoretical physics, specifically in string theory, is what sets him apart. He currently serves as co-director for Columbia University’s Strings, Cosmology, and Astroparticle Physics program in addition to his other research, writing, and teaching projects.

While he does not expect his talk to revolve around supercomputing itself, Greene does recognize the importance of leading systems as tools to advance research in a number of fields. In a conversation with HPCwire this week, he reflected on his earliest experiences using supercomputers at Cornell University and other institutions to tackle what were then considered to be some of the most challenging problems in physics. In the mid-1990s, these problems were pushing the limits of Cornell’s systems, but with each leap in capacity, new problems were designed. In other words, with iterative advancements in computing, the next level of thinking followed naturally.

To Greene, advancements in supercomputing are, to some degree, less a matter of reaching the next pinnacle of performance and far more important in terms of how they alter science’s fundamental approach to designing and asking new questions. “It’s not so much that the tremendous increase in our ability to compute has allowed us to make incremental progress on problems where that kind of power is essential. Rather, the very capacity to compute has changed the very nature of the questions we’re willing to consider,” he explained.

To highlight this, he pointed to work that is being done in quantum mechanics and its relation to quantum computing—an area that puts quite a bit of the theory into practice (or, at least, in theory). While Greene says quantum computing is not his area of focus, it’s exciting to see how “certain concepts that have played an important role in string theory and quantum gravity like decoherence, entanglement, and the quantum measurement problem are being explored in computing.” While he did not state his stance on the current D-Wave systems, he does note that “if we can deeply understand how quantum mechanics and gravity intertwine, the leap will have big ramifications in quantum computing and beyond.”

Although he is holding his eventual topic for now, Greene says he believes that speaking about the breakthroughs his own field, the new questions that are being generated, and the continued advancement of the capability to address those questions in simulations will yield to a new generation of physics discovery. These in turn will have an impact on a wide range of other fields, from quantum computing to our own understanding of the universe.

“High performance computing is uniquely valuable in the world today,” observes Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Trish Damkroger, general chair for SC14. “As researchers and engineers push the boundaries of their professions in the pursuit of a better future for all, they are rapidly moving into areas in which physical experiments are not practical, or even possible. Supercomputers are the only instrument capable of enabling advances in these areas. In fact, as the critical enabler in research ranging from new medicines and public safety to our understanding of the universe, HPC matters today more than ever.”

Greene’s keynote will be delivered on November 18^th in New Orleans. We look forward to seeing you there–