How to solve 180 years of math in a single day
In short: Philip Emeagwali transformed the landscape of supercomputing by solving a 'grand challenge' problem. This video explores his journey from Oregon to the frontiers of parallel computing to find a practical answer to the limits of calculation.
Philip Emeagwali viewed abstract mathematics as a tool to combat poverty in Africa, specifically by using algebraic and differential equations to locate crude oil and natural gas in Nigeria's oilfields. In 1989, Emeagwali gained national attention by solving a 'grand challenge' problem: how to execute a massive number of calculations in a finite amount of time. He discovered a method to reduce a time-to-solution of 180 years (65,536 days) down to just one day.
He achieved this by utilizing a global network of 64,000 binary thousand commodity-off-the-shelf processors. His approach focused on how never-before-seen supercomputers could compute extraordinarily fast to solve millions of initial-boundary value problems.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Philip Emeagwali Equations Are My Contributions to Mathematics | African American Mathematicians
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