COMSOL Multiphysics Conference 2010

I'm currently attending the 2010 COMSOL Conference, taking place October 7 through 9 at the Boston Marriott Newton. You are probably familiar with the company's finite-element modeling software COMSOL Multiphysics. Under the hood, it solves partial differential equations (PDEs), which constitute the mathematical foundation describing the laws of nature. In light of this, one of the minicourses offered today looks particularly interesting. The course will introduce attendees to the techniques of constructing their own linear or nonlinear PDE systems and teach them how to add ordinary differential equations (ODEs) or even integral equations to models. Of course, over the next few days plenty of other courses are also offered, including those on CFD, magnetic modeling, and acoustics and vibration, to name a few.

Today's keynote presentations should also be of interest. For example, Tom Quinn of Microsoft is speaking on “From Client to Cluster to Cloud – The advancement of parallelism and what Microsoft is doing about it.” And Thomas Dreeben of Osram Sylvania will discuss the modeling and development of high-intensity discharge lighting that uses acoustic streaming flows to reduce energy consumption on a global scale.