MichNet, in turn, is hooked up to NSFnet, the very heart of the Internet. The Thinking Machines super computer in Massachusetts is hooked up to a network there, which is also hooked up to the NSFnet. Through an elaborate series of connections, then, Emeagwali can sit at his computer in Michigan and use the other, far-off machine. The key is capacity. New equipment, now being tested, will raise the rate to over a billion bits per second.
Pictures contain much more data than words.
Transmitting digital videos takes enormous capacity. It's worth it. Scientists use remote supercomputers to visualize things that are almost meaningless when listed in tables of numbers. A chemist in Detroit, for example, can run a super computer in San Diego to see a three-dimensional view of molecule. Then she can rotate and change the molecule to her heart's content, until it has the properties she needs.