IU X-Informatics Unit 17: Parallel Computing 4:Parallel Computing in Society I
Channel: Digital Science Center Courses
Date: 10/09/2013

Lesson Overview:
This lesson from the past notes that one can view society as an approach to parallel linkage of people. The largest example given is that of the construction of a long wall such as that (Hadrian's wall) between England and Scotland. Different approaches to parallelism are given with formulae for the speed up and efficiency. The concepts of grain size (size of problem tackled by an individual processor) and coordination overhead are exemplified. This example also illustrates Amdahl's law and the relation between data and processor topology. The lesson concludes with other examples from nature including collections of neurons (the brain) and ants.

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