What People Are Saying

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“The KIM project is a very important community effort to finally start bridging all different programs and potentials to enable standardization and critical testing. We are honored to be part of this effort.” Erik Lindahl (GROMACS developer, Stockholm University, Sweden)


“I like the idea and wish you well!” Vincent Crespi (Penn State, USA)


“What you are planning looks an excellent idea - the sort of thing that could save lots of time and remove lots of frustration.” Marshall Stoneham (University College London, UK)


“Developing an API for interatomic potentials is a brilliant idea, and yet so obvious that now I can't imagine why it hasn't been done decades ago.” Steve Stuart (Clemson University, USA)


“Great effort!” Peter Gumbsch (Fraunhofer Institute, Germany)


“I am very pleased to see that you have been successful in obtaining funding from the NSF for this challenging venture. I wish you and your collaborators the best of luck.” David Pettifor (Oxford University, UK)


“I would definitely be interested in participating in these efforts. As both a user (via IMD and other simulation programs) and creator (via potfit) of effective potentials, I can see the value of having potentials that provide reproducible results independent of the simulation program used, and can easily exchanged between researchers.” Peter Brommer (IMD developer, U. Montreal, Canada)


“I'm confident that I'll be using KIM for the rest of my academic career. I'm excited to have a chance to contribute to its development.” Adam Cadien (Graduate student, George Mason University, USA)


“What a splendid goal!” Emily Carter (Princeton University, USA)


“Valuable initiative” Karsten Albe (T. U. Darmstadt, Germany)


“I am looking forward to become part of this initiative that is going to be extremely useful to the molecular simulation community.” Dhiraj Mahajan (Postdoctoral fellow, Rhur-University Bochum, Germany)


“As an active potential developer, I am very interested in participating in the standardization efforts” Howard Sheng (George Mason University, USA)


“I would be interested in helping to standardize the description and formats of interatomic potentials. At my age I have a lot of prejudices, a few of which may be useful.” John Wilkins (Ohio State, USA)


“I look forward to seeing if we can raise the visibility of interatomic potentials. I don't think many realize their modelling value especially for alloys.” John Wilkins (Ohio State, USA)


“I am very interested in APIs for interatomic potentials. In fact, at ICAMS we are at the moment making our present bond-order potential code into a library that can be integrated easily into common MD codes or script environments.” Ralf Drautz (Rhur-University Bochum, Germany)


“I believe unifying APIs for interatomic is a very necessary next step for the atomistic modeling community.” Lars Pastewka (Postdoctoral fellow, Johns Hopkins University, USA)


“I find the project very important for expanding the scope of atomistic simulation application, and also very timely and interesting for me as I have been working on potential development for various materials” Yoshi Umeno (U. Tokyo, Japan)


“I find the KIM project very promising and valuable because the establishment of interatomic potential database and standardization of related formats, together with a platform of API, will serve those working on atomistic modeling very much and bring remarkable advance in this field.” Yoshi Umeno (University of Tokyo, Japan)


“I believe that there is a great need for a standardised interface, that this is the right direction to go and hope that it will picked up by a broad user community.” Thomas Hammerschmidt (ICAMS, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany)


“I was a bit sceptical about the KIM idea before I attended [the KIM Inaugural Workshop] but after the two days I became a enthused about it despite the too prolonged discussions on the KIM API standards I was involved in. If researchers have no skeletons to hide in their closet then the KIM idea should take off in terms of advertising/publicising their work/potentials.” Ilian Todorov (DL_Poly developer, STFC/Daresbury Laboratory, UK)


“I think [this] program on systematizing our knowledge of interatomic potentials is extremely valuable and a prototype for many other needed activities in this area.” Simon Phillpot (U. Florida, USA)


“Mathematical modeling of materials is now recognized as a new and independent discipline of knowledge. It is an indispensable tool in the hands of researchers and design engineers in the field of science and technology of nanomaterials. The most critical component of materials modeling is the interatomic potential. Some day we will be able to solve the whole quantum mechanical problem of an entire solid in its full glory. However, until that day, we have to depend upon parametric potentials. Presently a large number of parametric potentials are available that are fitted to reproduce certain specific physical characteristics of materials. For these potentials to be of wider practical use, it is crucial to have reliable information about their range and scope, and their validity. In addition, it is also important for users to be able to access these potentials and incorporate into their models without excessive effort. The KIM project with API standards led by E.B. Tadmor, R.S. Elliott, J.P. Sethna, R.E. Miller, and C.A. Becker fulfills these crucial needs of the users. It is a major step forward in materials modeling and I wholeheartedly welcome it. We will support it by providing the potentials that we develop and of course use the excellent facility provided by the project.” Vinod K. Tewary (NIST)