break
                Home       Forum       Contact us

Supercomputer sets petaflop pace


petaflop

You may not have noticed, but technology has passed a significant, if little-recognised, milestone. The news emerged only this week, but late last month a supercomputer built for the United States Government performed what is known as a petaflop, or one quadrillion calculations per second.

Few of us know what a quadrillion looks like (in Europe it’s known as a billiard), so, if you’re curious, here’s one you can study in private: 1,000,000,000,000,000. Big, isn’t it?

Mathematicians have calculated that a quadrillion-high stack of five-cent coins would reach Saturn, but that’s probably not much easier to visualise. Or spend…

Read Full Article

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • bodytext
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Furl
  • Reddit
  • Slashdot
  • StumbleUpon

Leave a Comment

Please note: Comment moderation is enabled and may delay your comment. There is no need to resubmit your comment.