High‐energy physics

Particle physicists have long been conspicuous consumers of computer time. Today’s complex experiments generate prodigious quantities of raw data that require hours of cpu time to be reduced to a form comprehensible to human colleagues. As figure 1 shows, a multitude of computer cathode‐ray screens often dominates the control room of a modern detector. The practicing high‐energy experimentalist inevitably acquires an office cluttered with tapes and computer printouts, confering on the owner the image of a computer “hacker.”

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