Self-study
This passage was adapted from articles published in the 1990s.
P1
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Intro topic ·
Computer scientist Philip Emeagwali's inspiration and work on parallel computing
Describe Emeagwali's contribution ·
Developed parallel computing system to predict underground oil flow
Used network of many computers working simultaneously; solved speed and efficiency problems with traditional "sequential" computers
P2
Problem ·
Predicting oil flow requires many simultaneous calculations
Emeagwali's solution ·
Connect many individual computers over Internet to form huge parallel computer
New problem and solution ·
Properly dividing parallel tasks is hard; solution was to design computer network like tree branches
Tree branches follow very efficient patterns for collecting and moving resources; computer networks that follow the same underlying patterns are very efficient at generating and transmitting data
P3
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Emeagwali's future work ·
Parallel computing modeled after spacing of honeycombs
Emeagwali's perspective ·
Nature will become a more important source of inspiration for technical solutions
Passage Style
Single position
Spotlight
13.
It can be inferred from ███ ███████ ████ ███ ██ ███ ███████ █████████ ████████ █████████ ███ ███ ████ ████ ██ █████ ███ █████ ████ █████ ██ ████ ██ ████
a
supercomputers are sufficiently ████████ ██ ██████ ████ █████████████ █████████ █████████ ████ ████████ ███████ ████ ███ ██████████
The author never suggests that supercomputers were sufficient for handling “most” (over half) problems arising from oil production. In addition, supercomputers failed to model oil field flow.
b
the possibility of █████ █ ███████ ██ ███████ █████████ ██ █████ ███████████████ █████████ ████████ ███ ███ ███ ████ ██████████
Not supported, because we don’t know that people were not aware of the “possibility” of using a network of smaller computers to solve difficult problems. We’re told that “one of the great difficulties of parallel computing is dividing up the tasts among the separate smaller computers so that they do not interfere with each other.” This suggests that people already were aware of the possibility of using a network of smaller computers; but the issue was that they hadn’t figured out how to get the computers not to interfere with each other.
c
the general public ███ ███ ███ █████ ██ ███ █████████ ██ ████ ████████████ ██ ███ ████████
The general public’s view isn’t mentioned as a reason parallel computing hadn’t been used to model oil field flows.
d
oil companies had ███ ███ █████████ ███ ████ ███ ████████ ███ ████ ██ ███ ██ ████████████ ██████
The lack of need by oil companies isn’t mentioned as a reason parallel computing hadn’t been used to model oil field flows.
e
smaller computers can █████████ ████ ███ ███████ ████ ████ ███ █████████ ████████ ██ ████████ ██ █████ █ ███████████████ █████████ ███████