The ultra-fast Thor computer has been installed at the University of Białystok (UW). It will be used for computer simulations of the secularization of contemporary societies. The computer was purchased under an international research project, which is headed by Prof. Konrad Talmont-Kamiński. The project is carried out in cooperation with the Norwegian research center NORCE.

Scientists will be searching the question of why secularization is progressing in some societies, why their inhabitants less and less identify with any religions, what such changes depend on and to what they can lead. Scientists will use advanced multi-agent computer modeling methods to identify and describe the cognitive and cultural mechanisms that underlie these important social changes.

The authors of the research will carry out many thousands of simulations that will show the impact of particular variables at the social level, such as the composition or structure of modeled societies, on the studied aspects of secularization. With such large, complex models, the project means a huge amount of computation. It would not be possible without a computer with very high computing power.