Wayne Witzel

Who is Wayne Witzel?

What would you like to know?

Education and Academic Interests

B.S. in Physics and Computer Science,
University of Utah

Work

Scientific Computing and Imaging, Computer Science,
University of Utah

Personal Programming Projects

Computer programs/games I've worked on
check it out

Hobbies

Some things I like to do

I graduated from the University of Utah with a B.S. in Physics and Computer Science in May 2000. Why?

Well, computer programming had been a hobby of mine since I was a young'n. I've always considered programming to be a limitless potential for creative expression. With enough imagination and creativity, the number of things one can do with a computer is innumerable. Since I was a kid, I was constantly working on and getting excited about one computer game project after another. You can check out my projects section for examples.

My love of physics stems from my passion for mystery, my appreciation of beauty, my interest in philosophy. Physics is filled with mystery. Sure, scientists answer more questions each day, but with each answer, new questions arise. I find quantum mechanics to be fascinating and full of mystery. I would like to go to graduate school to study physics more fully. I enjoy pondering the mysteries of the universe and struggling to understand "life, the universe, and everthing." There is so much beauty in the universe that is waiting to be discovered simply by paying attention.

I have a notion that the universe is fundamentally alive. I'm not sure exactly what this means and I try not to take my beliefs too seriously -- so many people hold strong, conflicting beliefs and it is so easy to be wrong or confused. However, I simply can't imagine how intelligence and consciousness can emerge out of inert matter. This is the type of philosophical inquiry that drives my passion for physics. So why not study philosophy instead? Well, it seems to me that philosophy involves too much speculation whereas physics relies upon actual experimental observations and rigorous mathematics. And I like mathematics.

Work

I currently work at the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute (SCI) at the University of Utah as a Computer Professional (doing computer programming). Visit my personnel web page. I work on the C-SAFE project funded by the Department of Energy's Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI) Alliances program. To quote the C-SAFE web page, "[The C-SAFE project] focuses specifically on providing state-of-the-art, science-based tools for the numerical simulation of accidental fires and explosions." I work on the Problem-Solving Environment (PSE) team, developing the infrastructure for our simulation software which runs on large-scale parallel machines. The people I work with appreciate and are impressed with what I do.

I've learned a lot from working on this project: parallel programming with MPI as well as threads, advanced C++ programming, more debugging practice than I ever really wanted, writing scripts for simplifying tasks, learning UNIX utilities, etc. It has been an enjoyable and beneficial experience working on this project and at SCI.

Personal Programming Projects

Mechanics Simulation Program (must see)

This is the latest project I've been working on. It is a program that allows you to build and simulate simple mechanical systems. It uses Lagrangian mechanics to automatically derive a system of ordinary differential equations which it integrates in order to run the simulation. Check it out. At least look at the movie clips.

WinTunnel

Travel through a randomly generated tunnel. Be careful not to hit the sides, or you'll get bounced around (annoyingly). Runs in Windows. Just left-click with your mouse in the center of the window to get going (left-click to pause as well) and move your mouse in the direction you want to go. Adjust the speed, tunnel paramaters, and 3-d perspective in "Options->Tunnel Options." This was a program I worked on at the end of high school and beggining of college. I showed it off to get my first programming job. It was my first real attempt at 3-d graphics.

Bubble War

Bubble War is a cute, simple game of competition that I started in high school during my Visual Basic days (before I learned C++). Here is the documentation. To play, just unzip it and run the setup program on a windows machine (it should work on Windows 95 and above I think).

After my first paragliding lesson, Summer 2001

Playing the guitar Hiking Biking Skiing Paragliding Reading (fiction, science, and philosophy mainly) Swing dancing (needs some practice)

Any questions?

Email witzel@cs.utah.edu