December 20, 2007 at 18:57MIT Dormitory Cyclists Power Supercomputer
A group of ten cyclists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has demonstrated that even the most powerful supercomputers can run on clean energy derived from human bodies. For 20 minutes, students were pedaling simulators to support the SiCortex SC648 Linux server , which was then calculating a nuclear explosion model. Of course, it would be possible to run another program on the machine, but the simulation of a nuclear explosion looks especially impressive in these circumstances.
Supercomputers of the SiCortex SC648 model have a compact design, plug into a standard 110 V outlet and consume only 1200 W, but at the same time they split numbers with a speed of more than 0.5 teraflops each. According to the manufacturer, other supercomputers require ten times more energy.
Marketers who organized this experiment, brought a number of interesting facts. They said that in 20 minutes of the experiment, the computer performed more calculations than modern human civilization in the first 3000 years of its history, until 1960.
via Computerworld
Supercomputers of the SiCortex SC648 model have a compact design, plug into a standard 110 V outlet and consume only 1200 W, but at the same time they split numbers with a speed of more than 0.5 teraflops each. According to the manufacturer, other supercomputers require ten times more energy.
Marketers who organized this experiment, brought a number of interesting facts. They said that in 20 minutes of the experiment, the computer performed more calculations than modern human civilization in the first 3000 years of its history, until 1960.
via Computerworld