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Scientists unveil super super-duper computer
It's GRAND, and it costs 250 of them.
Scientist-types at Leicester University today unwrapped an uncommonly powerful supercomputer they will employ to study high-level theoretical astrophysics.
The computer, modestly christened GRAND, was officially unveiled by Professor Ian Halliday who is chief executive of the UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC).
Comprising 24-CPU Silicon Graphics Origin 2000 machines with a shared-memory (SMP) architecture, GRAND is no budget piece of kit, costing £250,000.
GRAND will consider such noble subjects as matter falling into black holes, the way in which the Sun effects other planets and even the death throes of pairs of neutron stars spiralling into each other.