Collaborative computing, pioneered at UW–Madison, helped drive LHC analysis

Miron Livny is pictured near an enclosed bank of distributed computing equipment in the Computer Sciences and Statistics building. Livny specializes in distributed computing, which pools the computing power of thousands of processors to conduct number crunching at a huge scale. Photo: Jeff Miller When scientists at the Large Hadron Collider in Europe announced the appearance of a new particle among the pieces of smashed protons, Miron Livny saw a huge scientific success. But the University of Wisconsin-Madison computer scientist reveled in more than a fascinating research finding. "It's also a huge triumph for mankind," Livny says. "There were more than 40 nations that came together for a long time to do this one thing that — even if it all worked out — wasn't going to make anyone rich. It's a powerful demonstration of the spirit of collaboration." Collaboration has been guiding Livny's work for decades, and it is a large part of UW-Madison's contribution to the search for the Higgs boson.