PT130.S2.P2.Q10 > Analytics

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This passage was adapted from articles published in the 1990s.

Intro topic · Computer scientist Philip Emeagwali's inspiration and work on parallel computing

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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

Problem · Predicting oil flow requires many simultaneous calculations

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Emeagwali's solution · Connect many individual computers over Internet to form huge parallel computer

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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

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

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10.

The passage most strongly suggests ████ █████████ █████ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ██████

Some natural systems ████ ███████ ██ █████████ █████████ ██ ████████ ████ ███ █████████ ██ ███████████ ████ ██ █████████ ████████ █████ ██ ████████ ███████████

Supported, because Emeagwali thinks computer scientists will increasingly look to nature for solutions to technical problems. This implies he thinks some natural systems have solutions to problems that are analogous to some technical problems faced by computer scientists.

86%

Global weather is ██████ ███ ███████████ ██ ██ ██████████ ███████████ ████ ████ █ ███ ███████ ██ ████████

We have no reason to think Emeagwali believes weather is too complicated to be predicatable long in advance. In fact, he believes he has a design that will predict global weather patterns a “century in advance.”

Most computer designs ████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ████████ ██ ███████ ████████

No support for “most.” We don’t know that Emeagwali thinks over half of computer designs will be inspired by nature.

Massively parallel computers ████ ██████████ ██ █████████ ██████ ██ ███████ █████ ███ ████ ██ ██████████ ███████ █████████ ██████

We don’t know Emeagwali’s opinion about parallel computing and mundane computing tasks.

The mathematical structure ██ █████████ █████ ██ ██████ █████████ ███ █████████ ████████ ███████ ██ ███████ ███ ████ ██ ███ ███████ ███ ███████

Although Emeagwali used the structure of branching trees for his design, this doesn’t imply a belief about the “primary” use of the structure of branching trees.

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