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rhody
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CERN's[/PLAIN] boson hunters tackle big data bug infestation
It's the software or the science that's been wrong
Rhody...
It's the software or the science that's been wrong
One's analysis when processing experimental data must account for possible errors in the tools used to identify and detect expected behavior, not an easy task, which is why multiple, usually three or more methods are deemed necessary to rule out the possibility for false or erroneous results, before staking one's reputation and credibility on the accuracy of them.CERN says it has squashed 40,000 bugs living in ROOT, the C++ framework it is relied upon to store, crunch and help analyse petabytes of data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The massive collider generates 15PB of data each year from 600 million proton collisions per second.
ROOT contains 3.5 million lines of code while CERN's army of 10,000 physicists have surrounded that core with a further 50 million lines of software they have built to try and sift out Higgs boson from the petabytes. Higgs boson is the particle that theoretically gives mass to all other particles, but it has to date proved elusive.
The bugs have lived in ROOT since the data-munching framework came online in 1995, and were only finally winkled out using the application of commercially available static-code analysis tools from development testing specialist Coverity.
CERN reckons the bugs had helped muddy results from the LHC, throwing them off the Higgs-boson scent. Further, there were programs built by those 10,000 scientists that could never be properly tested prior to Coverity.
Rhody...
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