Patent ID: 6917596

Claim:
A method of addressing physical problems of a topological network, comprising the steps of: representing a topology of the network by a plurality of processing elements interconnected via a connection matrix, said processing elements and connection matrix constituting a topology engine; supplying queries representing physical problems of the network from a host processor of the network to the topology engine; processing the queries in the processing elements of the topology engine in accordance with the topology of the topology engine; and supplying responses to the queries from the topology engine to the host processor; wherein each processing element of the topology engine has a respective address and the connection matrix communicates packets between the processing elements using their respective addresses, wherein the queries and responses are supplied in the form of packets containing information relating to the queries and responses, and the step of processing the queries comprises communicating packets between the processing elements of the topology engine and processing the packets in dependence upon information in the packets and information stored in the processing elements.