Homework #1
Due Tuesday 4/15/2003 in class
[10 points]

1. Go to the Top500 supercomputer site at http://www.top500.org/
1. What are Rmax and Rpeak and what is their significance?
2. Plot Rmax and Rpeak over the past 10 years for the top 5 machines, noting any trends involving particular manufacturers. Do the same for the number of processors.
3. Has there been any change in the ratio Rpeak /  Rmax over the past 5 or 10 years (go back as far as you wish, following  ARCHIVE link)?
4. How about the ratio of Rmax  to the number of processors?
5. Follow the trends link on the web pages and note any trends that have taken place over time.
6. Pick a favorite installation, and discuss  an important application that runs on the machine. You may need to look at the installation’s web site
   
   
2. Amdahl’s law and speedup
1. Draw an analogy between Amdahl’s law and some phenomenon you observe in the real world (but not with a computer)
2. Draw  a similar analogy with scaled speedup