Surprising Science — March 24, 2011

U.S. to Build Fastest Supercomputer

A U.S. national lab plans to unveil a “Titan” supercomputer in 2012 that would dwarf the computing speeds of the latest record holder from China, as well as all previous competitors.

bigthinkeditor

Geeks and nationalists alike may begin celebrating America’s plans to build a supercomputer that will dwarf China’s current record-holder. “The new computing behemoth is designed to crunch 20,000 trillion calculations (20 petaflops) per second, according to PhysOrg. That handily beats China’s Tianhe-1A supercomputer, which can do 2,500 trillion calculations (2.5 petaflops) per second. Such calculations look staggering on a human scale. It would take 120 billion people with 120 billion calculators 50 years to do what the Titan supercomputer might do in a day.”

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

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The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

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The Well

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If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

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