The
picture is of Tim Weatherford back in 1990 with the Cray supercomputer
at NASA Langley. Tim was a computer science major from Murray , Kentucky
who co-oped with Langley and won the national ASEE Co-op of the Year
Award for work he completed in robotic "vision".
UK's supercomputer
currently (June'07) ranks #66 out of the top 500 worldwide. Why is such
powerful computing necessary? -primarily as a tool to attract top researchers
in many fields who need the number crunching power. The
TOP500
project was started
in 1993 to provide a reliable basis for tracking and detecting trends
in high-performance computing. Twice a year, a list
of the sites operating
the 500 most powerful computer systems is assembled and released. You
may go to www.top500.org to read
more on this subject and to http://www.top500.org/list/2007/06/100 to see the complete list of 500.
Notice the NNSA (National Nuclear Security Administration) is at the
top. The University of Kentucky's supercomputer power is ranked about
sixth among public universities.
