- published: 01 May 2014
- views: 229169
A supercomputer is a computer with a high-level computational capacity compared to a general-purpose computer. Performance of a supercomputer is measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instructions per second (MIPS). As of 2015, there are supercomputers which can perform up to quadrillions of FLOPS.
Supercomputers were introduced in the 1960s, made initially, and for decades primarily, by Seymour Cray at Control Data Corporation (CDC), Cray Research and subsequent companies bearing his name or monogram. While the supercomputers of the 1970s used only a few processors, in the 1990s machines with thousands of processors began to appear and, by the end of the 20th century, massively parallel supercomputers with tens of thousands of "off-the-shelf" processors were the norm. Since its introduction in June 2013, China's Tianhe-2 supercomputer is currently the fastest in the world at 33.86 petaFLOPS (PFLOPS), or 33.86 quadrillions of FLOPS.
Supercomputers play an important role in the field of computational science, and are used for a wide range of computationally intensive tasks in various fields, including quantum mechanics, weather forecasting, climate research, oil and gas exploration, molecular modeling (computing the structures and properties of chemical compounds, biological macromolecules, polymers, and crystals), and physical simulations (such as simulations of the early moments of the universe, airplane and spacecraft aerodynamics, the detonation of nuclear weapons, and nuclear fusion). Throughout their history, they have been essential in the field of cryptanalysis.
With my silicon jacket and my flat glass screen,
I got the facts and the figures,
typed 'em in with my fingers,
got to Google a question 'bout the QuickTrip's nitrate fare.
It ain't with the mud and the paint,
you created the world,
from the dirt to the girl,
impresive I'm colored so I can't get a job
and I'm embarassed I said it
but you can see where it's headed.
I want a new world and I'm gonna try
to type in the numbers right and build us a sky
and then divide it by seven so we can get us some light
so we can see what we're doin' when we're doin' what we're doin'.
I want a new world, and I feel terrible.
I was punching the figures in and forgot a variable
but, fuck it, it's done, it's time to make me a son.
I got the fear and the pain, it's time to pass it on.
Oh, supercomputer please grant me my wishes,
take care of my granny and plant me some fishes.
Oh, mercy mercy, I'm on my knees,
you make me a world all just to please you.
We're starving beneath you, them zeroes can't cut it
but I'm a fan of the ones but you're all so fickle 'bout
watching the veins as the blood just trickles out.
I'm gonna sing a song,