Oak Ridge Lab Supercomputer Doubles Performance 89
Anonymous Coward writes "The most powerful supercomputer available for general scientific research in the United States has undergone an upgrade that's doubled its peak performance. The Cray XT3 supercomputer at Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory can now perform up to 54 trillion calculations per second, up from its previous peak of 25 trillion calculations. 'It is probably the fifth-fastest machine' in the world, said Thomas Zacharia, associate laboratory director. 'It is clearly the fastest open-science machine in the U.S. today.'"
Maybe they're getting ready (Score:5, Funny)
Jumping the gun a bit, probably.
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Now for a Practical Use (Score:4, Funny)
1) Decrypt NSA keys so we can spy on them for a change
2) Develop a fool-proof method of determing what is spam and forwarding it all to Bill Gates
3) Calculate winning lotto numbers and donate the money to random charities
4) Develop an algorythm that decides where to go for dinner
5) Figure out how to make a pad that acutally stays in place AND doesn't stick to my a$$
2 cents,
QueenB
Re:Now for a Practical Use (Score:4, Funny)
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"High def classic pong" is so yesterday (Score:2)
Our labs are prepared for our uber-rich Magrathea - customer overlords.
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(Ben) Pak Ching Li [umanitoba.ca] is the guru if you are actually interested.
(link) [wiley.com] to one of his papers.
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Awesome (Score:5, Interesting)
I live in Tennessee, not too far from Oak Ridge (45 mins away). Most kids don't even know that there are labs there. The teachers don't mention them in school, and nobody cares.
Honestly, there's not much in Tennessee that's special (I've lived here for all 18 years of my life), so I wish they'd actually TELL us about the awesome stuff we _DO_ have near us.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Awesome (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, there's no major weapons work going on at BNL. At least, none that I know of.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Interesting)
Tours (Score:1)
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Oak Ridge National Labs Public Tour Info (Score:2)
"Public Tours
The 2006 DOE Oak Ridge Facilities Public Tour continues through Friday, Sept. 29. The 2 ½-hour tour begins and ends at the American Museum of Science and Energy, 300 S. Tulane, Ave., Oak Ridge. The tour is open to U.S. citizens 10 years of age and older. Charge is $3-$5 and registration is conducted the morning of each tour at the museum. The route focuses on DOE missions and the history of Oak Ridge. The program highlights all three
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The have touristy places to go like fake cutaway life size reactor cores (the graphite reactor is especially nice). We got to see things that glowed VERY bright from radioactivity as they came out of some reactor core. And quite a few other things.
The have a "science museum" that you don't even need permission to go to - anyone can. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki exhibit is especially good (from discussion and pictures on radiation poisoning to life size models
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Re:Awesome (Score:4, Funny)
I'm singin'
El Jaguar, El Jaguar
Five thousand Opterons on fire, El Jaguar
Giddy Up Oom Poppa Omm Poppa Mow Mow
Giddy Up Oom Poppa Omm Poppa Mow Mow
Heigh-ho Silver, away
Tonight I'm gonna ray trace me a big ol' honkin' scene
And I'm gonna give her all the poly's I can, yes I am
She's gonna have lights, shades and fill-ins
'Cause I saved up my last two hundred million
We're gonna go and find that researcher man
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I suspect your belief that there is little special in Tennessee has more to with your lack of experience than any lack in the state. Grow up and get out more.
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As far as the rest of East Tennessee, are you kidding? There's a *ton* of cool stuff to do. For starters, take a trip to the Smoky Mountains. Very nice. Th
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They actually even let you go visit the first two. The last three being failed experiments that are still a bit too hot for the everyday public. Kind of blew my mind when I first read about them. Just google for each with the prefix "oak ridge".
As a physicist though, the most interesting experiment there is the new Spallation Neutron Source http://www.sns.gov/ [sns.gov] which is being fi
a pointless personal anecdote (Score:2)
Two curious events from that trip:
First, I was working at the University of Chicago at the time, and when I checked in with security I had to sign in. I remember it being a wood building that looked like it had been built in the 1940s as a "temporary" war-building and never replaced. It gave me an odd feeling to sign in with security in a 1940s-looking building as Dr.
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According to the law (Score:1, Funny)
Imagine! (Score:1, Funny)
What happened? (Score:5, Funny)
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Nah (Score:2)
( yes im kidding, but it has been done in the past... intentoinally crippling hardware so that there is 'room for growth' when you pay more )
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(Kudos to all anyone who recognizes that!)
As far as tours, and such, check out the AMSE - American Museum of Science and Energy [amse.org]. I don't know that they stop by the labs, but you'll get a pretty good idea of "The Secret City project," Oak Ridge's history during WWII, and how OR is morphing into a center for research in all areas.
(Disclaimer: I work for the DOE, in Oak Ridge, so I see this stuff all the time.)
Shane
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Lt. Commander Data does 60 trillion (Score:3, Funny)
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If you had said the other parts of it run Windows I'm sure you wouldn't have to kill most slashdotters since they would have done the honors themselves.
But the question on everyone's mind... (Score:3, Funny)
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/ [digitalelite.com]
What kind of calculations? (Score:3, Interesting)
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In the quest for the answer to the ultimate... (Score:4, Funny)
Whether the inhabitants of Earth's matrix retaliate by reclassifying astronomers as pseudoscientists remains to be seen...
Tribute to Johnny Carson (Score:5, Funny)
Crowd: How fast is it?
Johnny: Awh, it's so fast, it'll do an infinite loop in seven seconds.
MaMahon: Yessss!
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Yeah, but will they be.... (Score:1)
Yes, but (Score:1, Troll)
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Turbo? (Score:2)
2 month old news (Score:3, Informative)
http://investors.cray.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=98390&p
All they do is upgrade to dual-core Opterons, hence the double performance.
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Skynet (Score:1)
So this public computer is now processing at 54 Teraflops? In the Terminator series didn't Skynet take over the world when it reached 60?
I for one welcome our new supercomputer overlords.
Yeah, but... (Score:1)
So it could generate bobbles... (Score:2)
Not to shabby.
So... (Score:1)
They built the system... (Score:1)
Bush's brain (Score:1)