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Science 31 January 2003:
Vol. 299. no. 5607, pp. 668 - 669
DOI: 10.1126/science.1081623
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Perspectives

COMPUTER SCIENCE:
Rough Times Ahead

Scott Kirkpatrick

Clusters of conventional computers have almost replaced vector-based supercomputers among the world's 500 biggest computing complexes, thereby tapping a computing resource with lower costs. But as Kirkpatrick explains in his Perspective, this approach brings new problems. He highlights the report by Korniss et al., who demonstrate that the simulations times of the different processors can diverge very quickly, leading to temporal "roughening." As a result, it can be difficult to synchronize computations performed on many different computers. Intermittent synchronization over random distances can suppress the roughening.

The author is in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 91904 Israel. E-mail: kirk{at}cs.huji.ac.il

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)