FEATURED TOPIC THIS ISSUE:   SUPERCOMPUTING                                            November 2006

 

ALABAMA SUPERCOMPUTER AUTHORITY

THE MEN AND THE MACHINES     Meet the ASA Supercomputing Team! L: Charles Wright and R: Dr. David Young standing beside the new SGI Altix. The Alabama Supercomputer Authority received the SGI 450 Altix system in November 2006. It will be integrated into the existing Altix 350 cluster for a smooth transition to the newer technology. When clustered with the Altix 350 hardware at ASC, the entire system will have 100 CPU's, and 304 GB of memory. Imagine how many desktop computers it would take to deliver that kind of power!

 

READING ABOUT SUPERCOMPUTING

What is a supercomputer? Wikipedia defines a supercomputer as" a computer that leads the world in terms of processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation, at the time of its introduction. The term "Super Computing" was first used by New York World newspaper in 1920 to refer to large custom-built tabulators IBM made for Columbia University."

A Word Definition From the Webopedia Computer Dictionary defines supercomputers as "the fastest type of computer. Supercomputers are very expensive and are employed for specialized applications that require immense amounts of mathematical calculations. For example, weather forecasting requires a supercomputer. Other uses of supercomputers include animated graphics, fluid dynamic calculations, nuclear energy research, and petroleum exploration. The chief difference between a supercomputer and a mainframe is that a supercomputer channels all its power into executing a few programs as fast as possible, whereas a mainframe uses its power to execute many programs concurrently."

Understanding supercomputers can be intriguing and useful. Getting to know a little history behind the machines can be interesting as well. One of the influential people of the supercomputing world is Seymour Cray.  Read how he describes an imaginary tour of a biological computer and then read an interview with Seymour Cray about his life designing supercomputers. If you really want to go back in time, get to know Charles Babbage sometimes referred to as "the father of computing". Hardly any of his early computing machines remain in existence, but in 1985 the Science Museum in London used his original designs to reconstruct one of his machines (Difference Engine No.2)  In 2000 the printer to this machine was completed. Mr. Babbage was not always designing computers, sometimes he liked to put mathematical investigations to use figuring out fun things such as the game of tit-tat-to.

Linux is the language of Supercomputers. Linus Torvalds invented Linux in 1991 while he was a college student. In May 2006, Torvalds was interviewed by CNN about the continuing development of Linux.

The Supercomputer timeline from 1942-2005 helps illustrate the progression of the development of the supercomputer. Another interesting history is a visual timeline (1939-1999) with accompanying text.

EDUCATION , THE INTERNET AND SUPERCOMPUTING

What does a Blue Gene and a Red Storm have in common? Check out the Top 500 Supercomputers in the world and see!

Supercomputers can help answer the "what ifs" of our world. We can use supercomputers to build models in such areas as astronomy, geography,medicine, weather, and car crashes and we can perform experiments exposing the models to a series of variables.  These mathematical models help us test and predict what might happen in "real life" situations. How does supercomputing affect the average guy? Research and development in manufacturing, design, and academics employ the use of supercomputers. Supercomputers affect our lives in ordinary and extraordinary ways each day. The following links are good illustrations that often we are unaware of the impact of supercomputers in everyday life.

Speedo Swim wear goes for the gold and brings formula one technology to the pool.

3D accident visualizations help law enforcement, juries, judges, and insurance companies to make determinations in accident investigations.

Supercomputers can help predict weather based on the use of climate models. NASA - Field Tests Unite Weather and Climate Models standard for coupling their weather and climate models to achieve a realistic predictive model. The average citizen as well as scientists, can view an interactive track of every Atlantic Tropical Cyclone and Hurricane since 1950 or see the climate prediction center at the National Weather Service.

The Genographic Project , a partnership between National Geographic Society and IBM is a research initiative that will trace the migratory history of the human species. Begun in November 2005, the five year project will trace man's origin by charting our DNA using supercomputing power. The Genographic Project will collect DNA samples from over 100,000 people worldwide to help piece together a picture of how the Earth was colonized.

NASA's most powerful supercomputer help researchers simulate the halo of dark matter that surrounds the Milky Way.  

Jim Gray is an engineer in Microsoft's Scaleable Servers Research Group and is working with the astronomy community to create SkyServer, an effort to make the entire world's astronomy data accessible as a single distributed database on the Internet. Another project, TerraServer-USA, provides free public access to a vast data store of maps and aerial photographs of the United States. TerraServer also is available as a Web service.

NEWS YOU CAN USE ABOUT SUPERCOMPUTING

The Supercomputer Challenge for students in New Mexico.

Not YouTube, HUGETube: Purdue researchers stream massive Internet video. Researchers at Purdue University's Envision Center for Data Perceptualization have transmitted what may be the largest movie ever streamed over the Internet. See the simulation and read about the project named The Bandwidth Challenge.

What is in the future? The future will bring even more supercomputers into our world. As technology becomes more powerful and affordable, people will invent ways to expand their computing power. Already students have attempted to build a supercomputer by linking hundreds of laptops together.

Quantum computers (How Quantum Computers Will Work) have the potential to perform certain calculations billions of times faster than any silicon-based computer.