Parallel molecular dynamics on a torus network

The parallelization of molecular dynamics enables scientists to study macroscopic properties from large collections of microscopic particles. Accomplishing this requires a very large number of molecules, but because the treatment is of discrete particles, there is inherent parallelism. Particle interactions are shown to be problematic, and the authors develop a parallel algorithm for molecular dynamics that runs on a network of Transputers. This article originally appeared in SIAM News, Vol. 26, No. 3, May 1993. It was updated during the summer/fall of 1995.