We humans as a - multi-planetary - civilization

The SpaceX Business Plan: Help Build a Spacefaring Civilization

by Nancy Atkinson
Universe Today

Elon Musk - (born June 28, 1971) is a South African-Canadian engineer, entrepreneur and philanthropist best known for co-founding PayPal, SpaceX and Tesla) - Elon Musk - conceded that the space business world is an extraordinarily difficult place to make money. But that isn’t his main priority anyway. “The reason I’m doing SpaceX,” Musk said during the Falcon 9/Dragon post-flight press conference, “is that I just happen to have a very strong passion for space and I want us to become true spacefaring civilization and even a multi-planetary civilization. That is my goal for SpaceX.” ...

http://www.universetoday.com/81570/the-spacex-business-plan-help-build-a-spacefaring-civilization/
http://www.universetoday.com/81570/the-spacex-business-plan-help-build-a-spacefaring-civilization/



SpaceX's Elon Musk with the Falcon rocket. Credit: SpaceX



The interior configuration of the Dragon capsule. Credit: SpaceX

P = NP ? is it bad news for the power of computing ?

Has the biggest question in computer science been solved? On 6 August 2010, Vinay Deolalikar, a mathematician at Hewlett-Packard Labs in Palo Alto, California, sent out draft copies of a paper titled simply "P = NP".

This terse assertion could have profound implications for the ability of computers to solve many kinds of problem. It also answers one of the Clay Mathematics Institute's seven Millennium Prize, so if it turns out to be correct Deolalikar will have earned himself a prize of $1 million.

The P versus NP question concerns the speed at which a computer can accomplish a task such as factorising a number. Some tasks can be completed reasonably quickly ¨C in technical terms, the running time is proportional to a polynomial function of the input size ¨C and these tasks are in class P.

read more ...

New Scientist Physics & Math

update December 10 2010

Neo - (Project scientist) - at AQUA@home posted the following:

Ah yes, that P!=NP "proof" was debunked back in August. :) There are a bunch of posts on a blog by Richard Lipton about it, along with hundreds of comments discussing the issues with the paper: http://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2010/08/15/the-p%e2%89%a0np-proof-is-one-week-old/

http://aqua.dwavesys.com/forum_thread.php?id=670#9283

IBM to build 3 petaflop supercomputer for Germany

by
Joab Jackson

Germany’s Bavarian Academy of Science has announced that it has contracted IBM to build a “SuperMUC” supercomputer that, when completed in 2012, will be able to execute up to 3 petaflops, potentially making it the world’s most powerful supercomputer ...

read more here ...

http://www.goodgearguide.com.au/article/371191/ibm_build_3_petaflop_supercomputer_germany/
http://www.goodgearguide.com.au/article/371191/ibm_build_3_petaflop_supercomputer_germany/

Chinese supercomputer is world’s fastest at 2.5 petaflops

China set to claim supercomputing crown - October 28, 2010

In a potential blow to US national pride the world’s fastest supercomputer is now Chinese, beating the Americans into second place for the first time since 2004 with a machine which is smaller and more energy efficient than its closest US rival.

In the run up to the release of the official list of the top 500 supercomputers next week the Chinese supercomputer, Tianhe-1A, looks certain to occupy the top spot

...

The system uses 7,168 NVIDIA Tesla M2050 massively parallel graphics processing units (GPUs) and 14,336 multi-core central processing units (CPUs). It would require more than 50,000 CPUs and twice as much floor space to deliver the same performance using CPUs alone. the company says.

Tianhe-1A was designed by the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) in China. The system is housed at National Supercomputer Center in Tianjin and is already fully operational. It will be operated as an open access system to use for large scale scientific computations ...

read more here ...

http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2010/10/china_will_claim_supercomputin.html
http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2010/10/china_will_claim_supercomputin.html