Supercomputers Crunching Potato Chips, Proteins & Nuclear Bombs

by Marco Chiappetta — Tuesday, December 05, 2006, 11:00 AM EDT

If you've ever wondered what some of today's top supercomputers are up to, this article on CNN explains many of the more common applications. Some of them are used for tasks like forecasting weather, designing safer more fuel-efficient cars, mapping DNA, exploring the cosmos and even calculating the curvature of Pringles potato chips.

"Supercomputers allow researchers to do in real time -- meaning days, weeks or months -- what could not be done during a lifetime with a single personal computer. "The amount of data that some of these supercomputers [produce] would be, maybe as much as 100,000 times more data than what you can put on a hard drive on a normal PC," Turek said."

While you're there, be sure to check out the gallery of well known supercomputers. And click the tab that compares a standard PC to a supercomputer as well. If you think current desktop systems use a ton of power, how does 1.5 megawatts and 5.8 million BTUs per hour sound?

Tags: supercomputer, computers, Chip, computer, chips, super, clear, NUC, potato, IPS, tat, protein, pro, BOM, OTA, supercomputers, EA, IP, AR, COM

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com