[Philip Emeagwali Computer]
[Inventing a Supercomputer]
TIME magazine called him
“the unsung hero behind the Internet.”
CNN called him “A Father of the Internet.”
President Bill Clinton called him
“one of the great minds of the Information
Age.”
He has been voted history’s greatest scientist
of African descent.
He is Philip Emeagwali.
He is coming to Trinidad and Tobago
to launch the 2008 Kwame Ture lecture series
on Sunday June 8
at the JFK [John F. Kennedy] auditorium
UWI [The University of the West Indies]
Saint Augustine 5 p.m.
The Emancipation Support Committee
invites you to come and hear this inspirational
mind
address the theme:
“Crossing New Frontiers
to Conquer Today’s Challenges.”
This lecture is one you cannot afford to miss.
Admission is free.
So be there on Sunday June 8
5 p.m.
at the JFK auditorium UWI St. Augustine.
[Wild applause and cheering for 22 seconds]
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I’m Philip Emeagwali.
The computer is the greatest invention, since
fire.
The modern supercomputer
is the greatest invention
in modern physics.
I believe that we are witnessing
a technological change
of tectonic proportion.
Each generation redefined the word “computer.”
Our descendants’ definition
of the computer
will perhaps become synonymous
and correspond to our phrase
“planetary-sized super-brain
that enshrouds our Earth.”
In Year Million, I foresee each
post-human person
as a super-intelligent cyborg
that is part human, part machine,
and part computer
and that has a great sense of humor.
I foresee their super-brains
as enshrouding even the Solar System and as
one super being
that can live forever.
When parallel supercomputing
meets the biggest questions
in computational science,
the impossible-to-solve becomes possible-to-solve.
Parallel supercomputing
is the vital technology
that enables us to ask
the biggest questions
and then find new answers
to those previously unanswered questions.
I’m Philip Emeagwali.
Back on February 1, 1922,
a science-fiction story was published
in the book titled: “Weather Prediction
by Numerical Process.”
That science-fiction story
described how, in theory,
64,000 human computers
could be employed and used to solve the
partial differential equations
that must be used
to predict the weather
for the whole Earth.
Back on June 20, 1974,
in Corvallis, Oregon, United States,
the day I began programming supercomputers,
I set my mind on programming
the fastest supercomputer.
A decade later,
my supercomputer-hopeful
became a new internet
that is a new global network of
64 binary thousand processors.
On July 4, 1989, I figured out
how to hindcast the weather
and do so one mile deep
inside an oilfield
that is the size of a town.
That massively parallel supercomputer
that is a new internet de facto
that I set my mind on
ultimately became my
signature invention
that became the subject
of school reports.
My contribution
to the development of the computer
is this:
I was the first person to figure out
how to turn the science fiction
of parallel processing across
millions of processors
into the non-fiction
that is today’s supercomputer
that occupies the space of a soccer field.
The reason I remember the date
I discovered
practical parallel supercomputing
was that it was the U.S.
Independence Day.
[The First Supercomputer Scientist]
You cannot study to become
the first parallel supercomputer scientist.
You can study to become
an aerospace engineer.
But you cannot study
to become the first astronaut
or to travel to the planet Mars.
You become a pioneer astronaut
by becoming the first person
to travel to Mars.
Similarly, you cannot study
to become the first person
to figure out how to harness
practical parallel supercomputing
and do so to solve real-world problems.
I’m Philip Emeagwali.
I became the first parallel supercomputer
scientist
because I was the first person
that performed the world’s fastest parallel
processed calculations
that solved real-world problems
and because I was the only person
to accomplish that alone,
as opposed to team research.
[What is the World’s Fastest Computer?]
What is the world’s fastest computer?
Speed is the core essence
of the supercomputer.
The first newspaper article
on the supercomputer
was dated February 15, 1946
and appeared on page one
of The New York Times.
That first newspaper article was titled:
[quote]
“Electronic Computer Flashes Answers, May
Speed Engineering.”
[unquote]
Airplanes fly at about the same speed they
flew in the 1950s.
If today’s parallel supercomputer speed
of a thousand million billion calculations
per second
was discovered in the 1950s
that decade’s supercomputer
could compute three million billion
times faster.
That first supercomputer of 1946
could only perform
385 multiplications per second
or 40 divisions per second
or three square root calculations
per second.
That first supercomputer
was about one thousand times
faster than
the fastest computing aid
of the time.
That supercomputer speed increase
from 1946 to present
is like an airplane completing
a 30,000 year-long trip
to a distant galaxy in just one day.
The car of today has one engine
and four tires
just as it had a century ago.
By comparison, the fastest supercomputer of
today
has 10.65 million processors,
or 10.65 million electronic brains, instead
of the one electronic brain
that it had in mid-1989.
The progress achieved in
supercomputer technology
is akin to completing in one day
an intergalactic outer space travel
that might have taken
three hundred centuries
if the same trip started in 1989.
[The Birth of a New Internet]
[My Contributions to the Computer]
Prior to my discovery
of practical parallel supercomputing
that occurred on the Fourth of July 1989,
parallel processing was mocked, ridiculed,
and dismissed
as a beautiful theory
that wasn’t confirmed
with an experiment.
Beauty is a subjective term.
The discovery of mathematical beauty that
has no physical reality
is not equivalent to the discovery
of a physical phenomenon
than can be experimentally reconfirmed.
My contribution
to the development of the computer
was that I experimentally confirmed parallel
processing
and did so via an experiment
that I conducted across
a new internet
that was a new global network
of 65,536 processors
that were identical to each other
that were tightly-coupled to each other
and that shared nothing
between each other.
Metaphorically speaking,
my supercomputing choices were to either walk
the shortest path,
called serial processing
on only one processor,
or fly the longest path,
called parallel processing across
millions of processors.
Flying was quicker because I can reduce,
or parallel process,
30,000 years to just one day.
[Contributions of Philip Emeagwali
to the Supercomputer]
What is the contribution
of Philip Emeagwali
to the development
of the supercomputer?
In 1989, I became an integral part
of conversations on contributions
to the development
on the fastest computers.
I became the subject of school reports
through my mathematical discovery
of how to solve
initial-boundary value problems
arising in mathematical physics
and how to solve them across
a new internet
that is a new global network
of processors
that were identical to each other
and that were tightly-coupled
to each other
and that each operated
its own operating system.
The contribution of Philip Emeagwali
to the development of the supercomputer is
this:
I was the first person to see
the ensemble of processors
in a new way, namely, as a new internet
in which the processors
have a direct relationship
with nearest neighboring processors.
In the old paradigm of supercomputing, processors
were independent entities.
I introduced a new way
of thinking about the new computer
as a new internet.
In my new way, or new paradigm,
I thought of my new supercomputer
as a new internet
that was a new global network of
64 binary thousand processors.
My new internet
was my instrument of extreme-scale computational
physics
that made the news headlines
because I discovered
how to harness it
and use it as a virtual supercomputer
and used it to solve grand challenge
initial-boundary value problems
that the computer cannot solve.
My invention, namely, my new internet
that is a virtual supercomputer,
took a new scientific
and technological significance
and did both in different contexts.
 
[The Importance of Supercomputers]
[How Are Supercomputers Used?]
How are supercomputers used?
As an extreme-scale
computational physicist, I used massively
parallel supercomputers
to execute complicated calculations
that would be impossible to execute
on the conventional supercomputer.
For me, Philip Emeagwali,
the parallel supercomputer
was my digital thermometer
and an instrument that can be used
to forecast the temperature,
rather than tell it.
And depending on the grand challenge problem,
the required calculations
can be the most complicated
ever executed.
In 1989, I discovered new ways of using
the massively parallel supercomputer
to solve real world problems.
Fast forward into the June 20, 1990 issue
of the Wall Street Journal
that highlighted my discovery
of parallel processing
as the vital technology
that will underpin all supercomputers.
I discovered how to harness
64 binary thousand processors
and harness them
to forecast the [quote-unquote] “weather”
at a depth of one mile below
the surface of the Earth
and across an oilfield
that is the size of a town.
If you believe your weather forecast,
then you have to believe that
a system of coupled, non-linear,
time-dependent, and three-dimensional partial
differential equations
were discretized
and were parallel processed across
a few million processors.
The Philip Emeagwali Formula
that then U.S. President Bill Clinton
praised
during his White House speech
of August 26, 2000
was in essence
how to mathematically
and computationally solve
that grand challenge problem
and how to solve it across
the millions of processors
that outlined and defined
a supercomputer
that is an internet de facto.
The Philip Emeagwali Formula
is my contribution
to the partial differential equation
of calculus and physics.
The Philip Emeagwali Formula
opened the new field
of massively parallel processed,
extreme-scaled
computational fluid dynamics
that, in turn, underpins
the fields of weather forecasting,
petroleum reservoir simulation,
and diverse sub-disciplines.
[Philip Emeagwali Supercomputer]
What is the Philip Emeagwali supercomputer?
For thirty years, I hardly gave lectures
and that absence
promoted an air of mystery
surrounding my contributions
to the development of the
parallel supercomputer.
In the 1980s, I abandoned
the sequential supercomputer
and the vector supercomputer
and abandoned both technologies
for what is named
parallel supercomputing.
In my new paradigm of supercomputing,
the total processor-to-processor
email communications
can dominate the total computations.
In my new paradigm of supercomputing,
the grand challenge problem
is fractured
into 64 binary thousand problems
that, in turn, allowed
a new parallel supercomputer
to emerge from the bowels
of my ensemble of processors
that defined my new internet
that is called
the Philip Emeagwali supercomputer.
[Opening New Computer Sciences]
The discovery
of parallel supercomputing
created the hottest sub-specialties
in mathematics, physics,
and computer science.
That discovery
of parallel supercomputing
had rich and fertile consequences across the
grand challenge problems
of science and engineering.
But back in 1943, Thomas Watson,
the chairman of IBM, said:
[And I quote]
“I think there is a world market
for maybe five computers.”
[End of quote]
Back in 1957, the editor
in charge of business books
for Prentice Hall said:
[And I quote]
“I have traveled the length
and breadth of this country
and talked with the best people,
and I can assure you that
data processing
is a fad that won't last out the year.”
[End of quote]
Back in the 1970s and ‘80s,
I was mocked and dismissed
from my research group.
I was rejected because I pursued
my research that led to my discovery
that the parallel supercomputer
will become the vital technology
that will underpin every supercomputer.
The parallel supercomputer
is a tool that is used to
accelerate innovation
and do so because
a scientific experiment, such as
general circulation modeling
to foresee otherwise unforeseeable global
warming,
that would have taken 30,000 years
to complete on an ordinary computer
can now be parallel processed across
an ensemble of millions of processors
and take only one day
to complete on a supercomputer.
Parallel processing
is a critical and an enabling technology
that shifted the paradigm
in both computing and supercomputing,
and shifted our way of counting
from counting only one thing at a time
to counting a million things at once.
Parallel processing
is a new way of counting.
Parallel processing
is the cornerstone of drug design
that accelerated the discovery of
new chemotherapy drugs,
new drugs that can kill cancer cells,
and new understanding of how Alzheimer's or
senile dementia
destroys memory.
The parallel supercomputer
is a tool that makes it possible
for a medical doctor
to analyze and interpret scans
and to detect different disorders
and to provide
better diagnostic information.
 
[A New Way of Supercomputing]
The parallel supercomputer
is used to accelerate
the rate of discovery of new compounds, new
materials, new physics,
new mathematics, and of course,
new computer science.
The invention of parallel processing
opened a doorway
to a new world in supercomputing
that is called
extreme-scale computational physics.
That new parallel processed pathway
leads to the emerging fields
of supercomputing the weather
for above and below
the surface of the Earth.
Parallel processing
is the vital technology
that opened new possibilities
that were essential to the development of
new sciences, new technologies,
and new fields of study.
Parallel processing
made the impossible-to-solve
possible-to-solve.
Parallel processing
widened our horizons
and changed the way
we looked at the computer
and the supercomputer.
Parallel processing
enabled the supercomputer scientist
to produce new facts, new mathematics, and
new physics.
The parallel supercomputer
brought an enrichment of meanings
in the sciences.
The parallel supercomputer
is the universal enabler
of mathematics and science.
[Supercomputing Down Memory Lane]
The first supercomputer
that I began programming—back on June 20,
1974—was locked away
in the bowels of the building
at 1800 SW Campus Way,
Corvallis, Oregon, United States.
The supercomputer
is not used for writing letters
or doing taxes or planning a vacation.
Since 1957, the supercomputer
was programmed
by an exclusive priesthood
who were versed in a language
called FORTRAN.
The term FORTRAN is the acronym for
FORmula TRANslation.
I was one of those
supercomputer priests
that was at home with FORTRAN.
By the late 1970s and early ‘80s,
I was programming
the fastest computers
in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood
of Washington, District of Columbia
and in College Park, Maryland.
Back from mid-1977 through mid-1980s, the
research laboratories
that were active in supercomputing
and that were a short bus ride
from my residences
in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood
of Washington, DC
and near the Silver Spring Metro Station,
include the National Security Agency
in Fort Meade, Maryland;
U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
in Washington, DC;
U.S. Army Aberdeen Proving Ground
in Aberdeen, Maryland;
David Taylor Model Basin
in Bethesda, Maryland;
National Institute of Standards
and Technology
in Gaithersburg, Maryland;
and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Back then, I was programming
the fastest computers
and doing so to solve linear systems
of equations
that arose in extreme-scale algebra
that, in turn, arose from
my finite difference discretizations
of the partial differential equations
that I invented
and that governed
initial-boundary value problems
of physics and calculus.
As a mathematical aside,
the differential equation
is the most recurring decimal
within the grand challenge problems
solved in all supercomputers
and solved
since the first automatic computer
was invented in 1946.
[A New Era of Computing]
My discovery
of how practical parallel supercomputing
can be used
to solve grand challenge problems
was a breakthrough
that was important enough
to make the news headlines.
That particular discovery
of practical parallel supercomputing
that occurred on the Fourth of July 1989 opened
the door
for the modern supercomputer
that is powered by millions of processors
that is used to cooperatively solve
real world problems.
That discovery
made the news headlines because
it enabled us to see computers
and supercomputers
in a different way, namely,
as parallel processing
or solving a million problems
at once,
instead of solving only one problem
at a time.
[What Does a Supercomputer Look Like?]
What does the world’s fastest supercomputer
look like inside?
The world’s fastest supercomputer
occupies the space of a soccer field
but yet its crown jewel,
called parallel processing,
has 200 miles of email cables
that remains invisible.
Back in the 1970s,
only a few computer scientists
had seen and programmed
the most massively parallel supercomputer
in the world.
Back in the 1980s,
I was the only fulltime programmer
of the most massively parallel supercomputer
ever built.
In 1989, most computer scientists
cannot recognize
a parallel supercomputer
if they see it.
I was the first person
to recognize that the new global network
of identical processors
that were equal distances apart
that were on the surface
of a sphere in three-
and higher-dimensions
was completely different
from any supercomputer
any programmer
had programmed before.
In 1989,
I was in the news headlines because
I recognized the new technology
to be a new computer
that is a new internet
that could be harnessed
to solve grand challenge problems
and solve them at lightspeed
and used to parallel process
massive calculations across millions of
commodity-off-the-shelf processors
that I integrated
into one seamless cohesive supercomputer.
What does a supercomputer look like?
The world’s fastest supercomputer
must occupy the space of a soccer field,
and do so because
it is comprised of ten million processors
that were packed closely together.
The supercomputer that I program
is ten million times faster than
your computer
and is faster because
it is powered by
an ensemble of ten million processors
that is solving ten million problems
at once.
 
[What Makes a Computer Super?]
In high performance computing,
the quintessential question is this:
“What makes a computer super?”
At 8:15 in the morning
of the Fourth of July 1989
in Los Alamos, New Mexico,
United States, I discovered
that parallel processing,
or solving a million problems at once,
makes the supercomputer super.
It’s been said that
a mathematical truth
is not always synonymous
to a physical truth.
I discovered that
parallel supercomputing
is a mathematical truth
that is synonymous
to a physical truth.
In the 1970s and ‘80s,
I was the lone wolf
parallel processing programmer
and the first supercomputer scientist
to recognize that the parallel supercomputer
could be harnessed
and used to solve
extreme-scale problems
arising in computational physics.
I was the first person
to figure out how to use
the parallel supercomputer
to solve real world problems.
I am the first programmer
of the modern supercomputer
that solves grand challenge problems
and did so
by dividing them into millions of
smaller problems
and solving them simultaneously,
or in parallel
and solving them with a one-to-one
problem-to-processor correspondence
and solving them across
as many processors.
In summary, my signature invention
was my discovery that
parallel processing
is the vital technology
that underpins every supercomputer
and that helps solve
unsolved real-world problems.
What makes a computer super?
China spent 300 million dollars
to build one parallel supercomputer.
Japan has a parallel supercomputer
on the drawing board
that will cost 1.25 billion dollars.
A computer that costs a billion dollars
is a supercomputer.
[When Was the Supercomputer Invented?]
The parallel supercomputer
was not invented, in its entirety,
in only one day.
The modern supercomputer
began in an Eureka Moment!, namely,
my discovery that occurred
on the Fourth of July 1989.
On that date, I discovered that
parallel processed time-to-solutions
is sixteen orders of magnitude faster than
its serial processed counterpart.
My discovery
inspired the adoption of
parallel processing
as the standard technology
that powers all supercomputers manufactured.
But most importantly, a supercomputer isn’t
super
until it is used to forecast the weather for
your evening news
or used to hindcast the weather
within the crude oil, injected water,
and natural gas
that is flowing one mile underneath
the surface of a production oilfield
that is the size of a town.
That hindcast,
or parallel processed
petroleum reservoir simulation
was simulated
at the fastest speeds in supercomputing.
Back on the Fourth of July 1989,
I was the lone wolf fulltime programmer of
the most massively
parallel supercomputer
ever built
and that was parallel processing across
a new internet
that was a new global network of
two-raised-to-power sixteen processors
that were tightly-coupled
to each other
that were equal distances apart
from each other
that were identical
to each other
and that shared nothing
between each other.
The central processing unit,
or processor,
is the brain of the computer
and my supercomputer
was powered by 65,536 brains,
or as many processors,
that each operated
its own operating system.
[Why is the Supercomputer Used?]
Why must the research scientist
use the supercomputer?
The answer is that
some of nature’s secrets
are discoverable
only by parallel processing
and doing so
within the fastest supercomputers.
The weather
and the climate are intimately related.
The climate
is the weather averaged over a century.
We get the weather.
But we expect the climate.
The predictive accuracy
of climate models increases
when the number of processors
used to predict the climate
increases.
The parallel supercomputer
is in the hands of the weather forecaster
in the United States.
The supercomputer
is in the hands of the extreme-scale petroleum
reservoir simulator
in the Niger Delta oilfields
of the southeastern region of Nigeria
that is seeking to discover and recover otherwise
elusive crude oil
and natural gas
that was buried for one million years
and buried one mile below
the surface of an oilfield
that is the size of a town.
In extreme-scale
computational medicine,
the technology of the massively
parallel supercomputer
is the bedrock of the technique
of massively parallel sequencing
that yields high-throughput
in DNA sequencing.
Back in 1989,
I was in the news headlines
because I discovered what makes
the world’s fastest supercomputer fast.
I discovered that parallel processing
is the vital technology
that puts the “super”
into the supercomputer.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I’m Philip Emeagwali.
[Wild applause and cheering for 17 seconds]
Insightful and brilliant lecture
