About Us

The Lothar Collatz Center for Computing in Science lays the foundation for transferring methods and tools from Mathematics and Computer Sciences to the simulation-based sciences, and the other way around -- stimulates application oriented basic research in Mathematics and Computer Science through highly complex modern applications with large social impact.

Scientific motivation

Computing nowadays is an integral part in many fields of applied sciences. It serves as key technology for validating scientific theories and experiments, and for predicting the behavior of astrophysical, biological, chemical, economical, medical, meteorological, physical, and engineering systems. Against the background of increasing system and data complexity the successful application of computing in science in future requires the strengthening of interdisciplinary research with Mathematics and Computer Science as bonding research fields for the simulation-based sciences. This is supported e.g. by the OECD Global Science Forum Report on Mathematics in Industry 2008, where the relationship between Mathematics/(Computer Science) and other sciences is acknowledged as important and mutually beneficial for future considerations. Future developments in the simulation-based sciences will benefit in several aspects, e.g. from making the step from sole simulation to optimization and design with mathematical models, and from information extraction from ultra-large data sets using modern scientific visualization and parallel processing techniques. These developments are crucial to establish the adaption of Scientific Computing to the needs for applications in the 21st century.

The Lothar Collatz Center for Computing in Science forms the scientific courtyard of the Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Natural Sciences of the University of Hamburg for transferring methods and tools from Mathematics and Computer Sciences to the simulation-based sciences, and the other way around -- stimulates application oriented basic research in Mathematics and Computer Science through highly complex modern applications with large social impact. It therefore is crucial to detect, define, and develop interdisciplinary research projects which have in common that significant progress only can be achieved through a high fidelity interplay of the respective topic with Mathematics and Computer Science. Under its roof it is intended to bond Mathematics and Computer Sciences with simulation-based sciences in Hamburg through joint interdisciplinary education and research in the three areas

Along with the scientific impact of High-Performance-Computing (HPC) here special emphasis is taken on Green Computing through a critical discussion of the interplay between computer performance and its correlation to knowledge gain.