An Indian salute for President Musharraf
Harish Nambiar January 12, 2002
#560 Posted by AlephNull on February 10, 2002 2:55:09 am
harimau #591
``Why choose a long thin cylinder or a wire as the shape? I had in mind a rather squat cylinder when I said that shape doesn`t alter the mass. Of course, you could the accurate claim that a cylindrical tube wouldn`t go critical despite exceeding the critical mass for the element it is made of and try to disprove me, which incidentally is how the Little Man was designed. I was not thinking of annular shapes when I said shape doesn`t matter.``
I mentioned the most extreme example - a wire - to make it easiest to grasp why shape does matter. A critical mass sphere can be continuously deformed into a squat cylinder of the same mass, and then into an elongated cylinder. If the critical mass requirement doesn`t change between the sphere and the squat cylinder, at what point does it then change on the route to the elongated cylinder, and why? It`s easy for a neutron to escape out of the wide flat ends of a squat cylinder or the long curved sides of a thin cylinder. The solid sphere with the same volume has the longest average path length through solid matter from a point in its interior to the exterior. This is still only heuristic. I prefer not to use proof by reference to eminent authority, but if you like you can look up Robert Serber`s `Los Alamos Primer`, which is an annotated version of the lectures he gave to the experimental physicists on the Manhattan Project. It`s an easy read for anybody with a technical background and ought to be in any university library. I remember Serber works out the condition for criticality for a sphere and for a cube of the same material - the latter has a significantly higher critical mass.
``However, the fear existed that if the bomb fell into the ocean, seawater would act as a moderator and the bomb could go critical without the internal gun being fired.``
That would probably be a slow-neutron chain reaction, enough to blow the weapon apart but not to cause a full-scale explosion.
``Why choose a long thin cylinder or a wire as the shape? I had in mind a rather squat cylinder when I said that shape doesn`t alter the mass. Of course, you could the accurate claim that a cylindrical tube wouldn`t go critical despite exceeding the critical mass for the element it is made of and try to disprove me, which incidentally is how the Little Man was designed. I was not thinking of annular shapes when I said shape doesn`t matter.``
I mentioned the most extreme example - a wire - to make it easiest to grasp why shape does matter. A critical mass sphere can be continuously deformed into a squat cylinder of the same mass, and then into an elongated cylinder. If the critical mass requirement doesn`t change between the sphere and the squat cylinder, at what point does it then change on the route to the elongated cylinder, and why? It`s easy for a neutron to escape out of the wide flat ends of a squat cylinder or the long curved sides of a thin cylinder. The solid sphere with the same volume has the longest average path length through solid matter from a point in its interior to the exterior. This is still only heuristic. I prefer not to use proof by reference to eminent authority, but if you like you can look up Robert Serber`s `Los Alamos Primer`, which is an annotated version of the lectures he gave to the experimental physicists on the Manhattan Project. It`s an easy read for anybody with a technical background and ought to be in any university library. I remember Serber works out the condition for criticality for a sphere and for a cube of the same material - the latter has a significantly higher critical mass.
``However, the fear existed that if the bomb fell into the ocean, seawater would act as a moderator and the bomb could go critical without the internal gun being fired.``
That would probably be a slow-neutron chain reaction, enough to blow the weapon apart but not to cause a full-scale explosion.
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#559 Posted by harimau on February 9, 2002 4:18:22 pm
Ref AlephNull #: 590
[``Mass remains the same no matter what the shape is. So, why a spherical core? Mass doesn`t change if the same amount of plutonium is cast as a cylinder, does it?``
No, shape does matter a great deal for a critical assembly of fissile material. [So, also, does density, and whether the fissile material is surrounded by vacuum, or by neutron-reflecting materials]. A chain reaction ensues when enough of the neutrons emitted in a fission induce further fissions (emittting enough additional neutrons) instead of escaping from the material entirely. It is most difficult to escape from a given amount of fissile material when it has the shape of a solid sphere, and easiest when it has the shape of a long thin cylinder or wire.]
Why choose a long thin cylinder or a wire as the shape? I had in mind a rather squat cylinder when I said that shape doesn`t alter the mass. Of course, you could the accurate claim that a cylindrical tube wouldn`t go critical despite exceeding the critical mass for the element it is made of and try to disprove me, which incidentally is how the Little Man was designed. I was not thinking of annular shapes when I said shape doesn`t matter.
[For a sanity check, you may recall that the Hiroshima bomb used about 50 kg of high-enriched uranium - about three `critical masses` worth - split between a `projectile` and a `cup`. Thus prior to explosive assenbly, at least one of the two fissile pieces had a mass greater than the nominal critical mass. It didn`t explode then and there from stray fissions because it was the wrong shape - cylindrical or cup-shaped, not spherical.]
Little Man used 64 kg of Uranium, about 2.4 critical masses. The projectile accounted for about 40% of the uranium, just under 1 critical mass. The rest was shaped as a cylinder with a hole through the center to receive the projectile, thus effectively reducing the critical mass. That is why it didn`t explode from stray neutrons. However, the fear existed that if the bomb fell into the ocean, seawater would act as a moderator and the bomb could go critical without the internal gun being fired.
[``Design of the explosive system to compress the core was one of the most difficult aspects of the Manhattan Project. It took over a thousand experiments with explosives to come up with the final configuraion of the explosive ``lens``.``
Yes, it was apparently technically very difficult - it called on the talents of John von Neumann. The idea of using multiple neighbouring segments of two different explosive materials, with different detonation speeds, to combine expanding detonation waves into a converging implosion wave, was his. The actual configurations of explosives used to get a spherical implosion would be familiar to anyone who`s seen a soccer ball. [It`s probably non-trivial to figure out how exactly to stretch and squeeze those patches to get a satisfactorily ellipsoidal implosion.] Also critical would be timing, to ensure that the individual detonations occur essentially simultaneously. Further, the explosives used would have to be of reliably uniform performance. But these challenges once surmounted are solved for all time; they do not require anywhere near the capital investment and energy as is needed to produce each kilogram of fissile material.]
I went back to the High Energy Weapons site. It took more than 20,000 tests with the explosive lens system to perfect it. And what worked on a smaller scale did not work exactly the same when scaled up. The composition of the explosives had to be uniform across its entire mass and the parts had to fit with extremely tight tolerances so that the shock waves were uniform and would not allow the plutonium pit to ``jet``, meaning, to squirt away in the direction where the pressure was slightly less.
Regarding availability of fissile material, the fissile material in short supply was uranium, not plutonium. Not only was one plutonium bomb tested at Alamogordo but another bomb could have been dropped on Japan on August 20, 1947, 11 days after Nagasaki. The bomb assemblies were all at Tinian island and were waiting only for the plutonium core. On the other hand, there wasn`t any uranium available for another bomb. Little Man was a completely untested though theoretically sound design.
[``Mass remains the same no matter what the shape is. So, why a spherical core? Mass doesn`t change if the same amount of plutonium is cast as a cylinder, does it?``
No, shape does matter a great deal for a critical assembly of fissile material. [So, also, does density, and whether the fissile material is surrounded by vacuum, or by neutron-reflecting materials]. A chain reaction ensues when enough of the neutrons emitted in a fission induce further fissions (emittting enough additional neutrons) instead of escaping from the material entirely. It is most difficult to escape from a given amount of fissile material when it has the shape of a solid sphere, and easiest when it has the shape of a long thin cylinder or wire.]
Why choose a long thin cylinder or a wire as the shape? I had in mind a rather squat cylinder when I said that shape doesn`t alter the mass. Of course, you could the accurate claim that a cylindrical tube wouldn`t go critical despite exceeding the critical mass for the element it is made of and try to disprove me, which incidentally is how the Little Man was designed. I was not thinking of annular shapes when I said shape doesn`t matter.
[For a sanity check, you may recall that the Hiroshima bomb used about 50 kg of high-enriched uranium - about three `critical masses` worth - split between a `projectile` and a `cup`. Thus prior to explosive assenbly, at least one of the two fissile pieces had a mass greater than the nominal critical mass. It didn`t explode then and there from stray fissions because it was the wrong shape - cylindrical or cup-shaped, not spherical.]
Little Man used 64 kg of Uranium, about 2.4 critical masses. The projectile accounted for about 40% of the uranium, just under 1 critical mass. The rest was shaped as a cylinder with a hole through the center to receive the projectile, thus effectively reducing the critical mass. That is why it didn`t explode from stray neutrons. However, the fear existed that if the bomb fell into the ocean, seawater would act as a moderator and the bomb could go critical without the internal gun being fired.
[``Design of the explosive system to compress the core was one of the most difficult aspects of the Manhattan Project. It took over a thousand experiments with explosives to come up with the final configuraion of the explosive ``lens``.``
Yes, it was apparently technically very difficult - it called on the talents of John von Neumann. The idea of using multiple neighbouring segments of two different explosive materials, with different detonation speeds, to combine expanding detonation waves into a converging implosion wave, was his. The actual configurations of explosives used to get a spherical implosion would be familiar to anyone who`s seen a soccer ball. [It`s probably non-trivial to figure out how exactly to stretch and squeeze those patches to get a satisfactorily ellipsoidal implosion.] Also critical would be timing, to ensure that the individual detonations occur essentially simultaneously. Further, the explosives used would have to be of reliably uniform performance. But these challenges once surmounted are solved for all time; they do not require anywhere near the capital investment and energy as is needed to produce each kilogram of fissile material.]
I went back to the High Energy Weapons site. It took more than 20,000 tests with the explosive lens system to perfect it. And what worked on a smaller scale did not work exactly the same when scaled up. The composition of the explosives had to be uniform across its entire mass and the parts had to fit with extremely tight tolerances so that the shock waves were uniform and would not allow the plutonium pit to ``jet``, meaning, to squirt away in the direction where the pressure was slightly less.
Regarding availability of fissile material, the fissile material in short supply was uranium, not plutonium. Not only was one plutonium bomb tested at Alamogordo but another bomb could have been dropped on Japan on August 20, 1947, 11 days after Nagasaki. The bomb assemblies were all at Tinian island and were waiting only for the plutonium core. On the other hand, there wasn`t any uranium available for another bomb. Little Man was a completely untested though theoretically sound design.
#558 Posted by AlephNull on February 8, 2002 7:32:11 pm
harimau #589
``Mass remains the same no matter what the shape is. So, why a spherical core? Mass doesn`t change if the same amount of plutonium is cast as a cylinder, does it?``
No, shape does matter a great deal for a critical assembly of fissile material. [So, also, does density, and whether the fissile material is surrounded by vacuum, or by neutron-reflecting materials]. A chain reaction ensues when enough of the neutrons emitted in a fission induce further fissions (emittting enough additional neutrons) instead of escaping from the material entirely. It is most difficult to escape from a given amount of fissile material when it has the shape of a solid sphere, and easiest when it has the shape of a long thin cylinder or wire. The key issue is the mean free path of a high-energy (`fast`) neutron. A critical sphere would have a radius of the same order as the mean free path (not exactly the same, but good enough for a heuristic explanation). A reduction in the radius of a fissile sphere (e.g. using explosives - even solid metals can be compressed significantly) causes a cubical increase in the density, and a corresponding cubical reduction in the mean free path - so a denser sphere requires less fissile material to go critical. Surrounding the fissile material with a neutron-reflective tamper similarly has the effect of reducing the critical mass. So the nominal `critical mass` figure quoted for a fissile material is that for a sphere of the material at normal density in vacuum.
For a sanity check, you may recall that the Hiroshima bomb used about 50 kg of high-enriched uranium - about three `critical masses` worth - split between a `projectile` and a `cup`. Thus prior to explosive assenbly, at least one of the two fissile pieces had a mass greater than the nominal critical mass. It didn`t explode then and there from stray fissions because it was the wrong shape - cylindrical or cup-shaped, not spherical.
``Design of the explosive system to compress the core was one of the most difficult aspects of the Manhattan Project. It took over a thousand experiments with explosives to come up with the final configuraion of the explosive ``lens``.``
Yes, it was apparently technically very difficult - it called on the talents of John von Neumann. The idea of using multiple neighbouring segments of two different explosive materials, with different detonation speeds, to combine expanding detonation waves into a converging implosion wave, was his. The actual configurations of explosives used to get a spherical implosion would be familiar to anyone who`s seen a soccer ball. [It`s probably non-trivial to figure out how exactly to stretch and squeeze those patches to get a satisfactorily ellipsoidal implosion.] Also critical would be timing, to ensure that the individual detonations occur essentially simultaneously. Further, the explosives used would have to be of reliably uniform performance. But these challenges once surmounted are solved for all time; they do not require anywhere near the capital investment and energy as is needed to produce each kilogram of fissile material.
``Mass remains the same no matter what the shape is. So, why a spherical core? Mass doesn`t change if the same amount of plutonium is cast as a cylinder, does it?``
No, shape does matter a great deal for a critical assembly of fissile material. [So, also, does density, and whether the fissile material is surrounded by vacuum, or by neutron-reflecting materials]. A chain reaction ensues when enough of the neutrons emitted in a fission induce further fissions (emittting enough additional neutrons) instead of escaping from the material entirely. It is most difficult to escape from a given amount of fissile material when it has the shape of a solid sphere, and easiest when it has the shape of a long thin cylinder or wire. The key issue is the mean free path of a high-energy (`fast`) neutron. A critical sphere would have a radius of the same order as the mean free path (not exactly the same, but good enough for a heuristic explanation). A reduction in the radius of a fissile sphere (e.g. using explosives - even solid metals can be compressed significantly) causes a cubical increase in the density, and a corresponding cubical reduction in the mean free path - so a denser sphere requires less fissile material to go critical. Surrounding the fissile material with a neutron-reflective tamper similarly has the effect of reducing the critical mass. So the nominal `critical mass` figure quoted for a fissile material is that for a sphere of the material at normal density in vacuum.
For a sanity check, you may recall that the Hiroshima bomb used about 50 kg of high-enriched uranium - about three `critical masses` worth - split between a `projectile` and a `cup`. Thus prior to explosive assenbly, at least one of the two fissile pieces had a mass greater than the nominal critical mass. It didn`t explode then and there from stray fissions because it was the wrong shape - cylindrical or cup-shaped, not spherical.
``Design of the explosive system to compress the core was one of the most difficult aspects of the Manhattan Project. It took over a thousand experiments with explosives to come up with the final configuraion of the explosive ``lens``.``
Yes, it was apparently technically very difficult - it called on the talents of John von Neumann. The idea of using multiple neighbouring segments of two different explosive materials, with different detonation speeds, to combine expanding detonation waves into a converging implosion wave, was his. The actual configurations of explosives used to get a spherical implosion would be familiar to anyone who`s seen a soccer ball. [It`s probably non-trivial to figure out how exactly to stretch and squeeze those patches to get a satisfactorily ellipsoidal implosion.] Also critical would be timing, to ensure that the individual detonations occur essentially simultaneously. Further, the explosives used would have to be of reliably uniform performance. But these challenges once surmounted are solved for all time; they do not require anywhere near the capital investment and energy as is needed to produce each kilogram of fissile material.
#557 Posted by harimau on February 7, 2002 12:09:36 pm
Ref AlephNull #: 588
[I don`t think this was the primary reason for the spherical symmetry of the Fat Man design. The scarcest resource in this case is fissile plutonium-239. The chain-reaction-critical configuration having the smallest volume/mass is a solid sphere, rather than, say, a cylinder. This is what dictates the shape of the rest of the device. The fact that a spherical implosion is easier to achieve than, say, an prolate spheroidal or ellipsoidal one, is convenient but not the driving factor.]
Mass remains the same no matter what the shape is. So, why a spherical core? Mass doesn`t change if the same amount of plutonium is cast as a cylinder, does it?
Design of the explosive system to compress the core was one of the most difficult aspects of the Manhattan Project. It took over a thousand experiments with explosives to come up with the final configuraion of the explosive ``lens``. The details on India`s 1974 test also says that about 500 tests were done before the ``lens`` was perfected. Perhaps a spherical implosion is not that easy to obtain.
[I don`t think this was the primary reason for the spherical symmetry of the Fat Man design. The scarcest resource in this case is fissile plutonium-239. The chain-reaction-critical configuration having the smallest volume/mass is a solid sphere, rather than, say, a cylinder. This is what dictates the shape of the rest of the device. The fact that a spherical implosion is easier to achieve than, say, an prolate spheroidal or ellipsoidal one, is convenient but not the driving factor.]
Mass remains the same no matter what the shape is. So, why a spherical core? Mass doesn`t change if the same amount of plutonium is cast as a cylinder, does it?
Design of the explosive system to compress the core was one of the most difficult aspects of the Manhattan Project. It took over a thousand experiments with explosives to come up with the final configuraion of the explosive ``lens``. The details on India`s 1974 test also says that about 500 tests were done before the ``lens`` was perfected. Perhaps a spherical implosion is not that easy to obtain.
#556 Posted by AlephNull on February 5, 2002 6:33:21 pm
harimau #582
``There is no way you can exceed 10%-20% efficiency in a nuke, the lower number for uranium weapons and the higher number for plutonium weapons.``
Limiting attention to weapons whose yield comes overwhelmingly from fission - efficiencies in the vicinity of 30% have reportedly been attained for fusion-boosted fission bombs. [In a fusion-boosted device, a small amount of deuterium-tritium mixture is introduced into the fissile core of the bomb. This undergoes thermonuclear fusion at the high temperatures reached towards the very end of the fission process, releasing high-energy neutrons which in turn cause more complete fission of the remaining fissile material.] Varying the amount of D-T mixture introduced allows one to control the extent of boosting, hence the yield, of a fusion-boosted fission device; or the yield of a two-stage thermonuclear device whose fissile primary employs variable boosting. It appears that accurate prediction through computational simulation of the yield of fusion-boosted fission devices (say, to calibrate the output of dial-a-yield nukes) remains elusive.
``For instance, the first plutonium design Fat Man was a sphere because it is comparatively easier to squeeze in all directions simultaneously to achieve implosion rather than along just one or two axes and not have the core behave like a ballon squeezed at one point.``
I don`t think this was the primary reason for the spherical symmetry of the Fat Man design. The scarcest resource in this case is fissile plutonium-239. The chain-reaction-critical configuration having the smallest volume/mass is a solid sphere, rather than, say, a cylinder. This is what dictates the shape of the rest of the device. The fact that a spherical implosion is easier to achieve than, say, an prolate spheroidal or ellipsoidal one, is convenient but not the driving factor.
The elongated shape of Little Boy was similarly a consequence of the cannon-based design of that device.
``Such a bomb won`t fit under the wing of an F-16 and you had to design an elongated bomb.``
Limiting oneself to implosion-based fission weapons: it is enough that the diameter of the spherical implosion assembly be small enough (say, under 18 inches, comparable with the maximum diameter of a drop tank). An elongated aerodynamic external casing can be added for the purposes of external carriage and delivery. I doubt that the reductions in maximum diameter would be worth the greater amount of fissile material needed for a fission weapon designed around, say, an ellipsoidal core; perhaps such a shape would have advantages as the first stage of a compact thermonuclear warhead such as the W-88. In the case of thermonuclear weapons, the devices possess one-axis rotational symmetry and are naturally somewhat elongated by design. In any case, weight is likely to be almost as critical as the drag of an externally-carried bomb.
harimau #587
``Finally, I saw a photograph of India`s first test bomb being lowered into the testing shaft. An elongated design that looks like an air-dropped bomb. What with all the accumulated knowledge from 1945, the Indians managed to design the bomb for today`s planes.``
What you most likely saw was the photograph of Shakti-I, the hydrogen bomb. Its cylindrical shape is a consequence of its being a two-stage thermonuclear device, not a one-stage fission device. Apart from its small gross size, `design for today`s planes` or missile nosecones is likely to have been an afterthought.
harimau #586
``Hoare is a professor of Computer Science and quite a pioneer in languages and operating systems. His comment on Algol was after he saw the popularity of Pascal and C and their increasing use``
C.A.R Hoare made that comment in 1974, before Pascal had attained widespread use and when C and Unix were in their barest infancy. It was most likely aimed at PL-1 and Algol-68, both much larger languages and neither eventually very successful. Incidentally, that comment is often originally attributed to Alan Perlis, a Turing Award winner one-and-a-half decades before Hoare.
``There is no way you can exceed 10%-20% efficiency in a nuke, the lower number for uranium weapons and the higher number for plutonium weapons.``
Limiting attention to weapons whose yield comes overwhelmingly from fission - efficiencies in the vicinity of 30% have reportedly been attained for fusion-boosted fission bombs. [In a fusion-boosted device, a small amount of deuterium-tritium mixture is introduced into the fissile core of the bomb. This undergoes thermonuclear fusion at the high temperatures reached towards the very end of the fission process, releasing high-energy neutrons which in turn cause more complete fission of the remaining fissile material.] Varying the amount of D-T mixture introduced allows one to control the extent of boosting, hence the yield, of a fusion-boosted fission device; or the yield of a two-stage thermonuclear device whose fissile primary employs variable boosting. It appears that accurate prediction through computational simulation of the yield of fusion-boosted fission devices (say, to calibrate the output of dial-a-yield nukes) remains elusive.
``For instance, the first plutonium design Fat Man was a sphere because it is comparatively easier to squeeze in all directions simultaneously to achieve implosion rather than along just one or two axes and not have the core behave like a ballon squeezed at one point.``
I don`t think this was the primary reason for the spherical symmetry of the Fat Man design. The scarcest resource in this case is fissile plutonium-239. The chain-reaction-critical configuration having the smallest volume/mass is a solid sphere, rather than, say, a cylinder. This is what dictates the shape of the rest of the device. The fact that a spherical implosion is easier to achieve than, say, an prolate spheroidal or ellipsoidal one, is convenient but not the driving factor.
The elongated shape of Little Boy was similarly a consequence of the cannon-based design of that device.
``Such a bomb won`t fit under the wing of an F-16 and you had to design an elongated bomb.``
Limiting oneself to implosion-based fission weapons: it is enough that the diameter of the spherical implosion assembly be small enough (say, under 18 inches, comparable with the maximum diameter of a drop tank). An elongated aerodynamic external casing can be added for the purposes of external carriage and delivery. I doubt that the reductions in maximum diameter would be worth the greater amount of fissile material needed for a fission weapon designed around, say, an ellipsoidal core; perhaps such a shape would have advantages as the first stage of a compact thermonuclear warhead such as the W-88. In the case of thermonuclear weapons, the devices possess one-axis rotational symmetry and are naturally somewhat elongated by design. In any case, weight is likely to be almost as critical as the drag of an externally-carried bomb.
harimau #587
``Finally, I saw a photograph of India`s first test bomb being lowered into the testing shaft. An elongated design that looks like an air-dropped bomb. What with all the accumulated knowledge from 1945, the Indians managed to design the bomb for today`s planes.``
What you most likely saw was the photograph of Shakti-I, the hydrogen bomb. Its cylindrical shape is a consequence of its being a two-stage thermonuclear device, not a one-stage fission device. Apart from its small gross size, `design for today`s planes` or missile nosecones is likely to have been an afterthought.
harimau #586
``Hoare is a professor of Computer Science and quite a pioneer in languages and operating systems. His comment on Algol was after he saw the popularity of Pascal and C and their increasing use``
C.A.R Hoare made that comment in 1974, before Pascal had attained widespread use and when C and Unix were in their barest infancy. It was most likely aimed at PL-1 and Algol-68, both much larger languages and neither eventually very successful. Incidentally, that comment is often originally attributed to Alan Perlis, a Turing Award winner one-and-a-half decades before Hoare.
#555 Posted by harimau on February 5, 2002 11:35:36 am
Ref rajanjua #: 585
[``By the way, the Fat Man weighed 10,000 lbs for its 20 kiloton output, way too much to be carried on the wings of a F-16. That is why you need new designs for nukes.``
YOU as in Pakistan or India - Yes, I know - Let me also add that folks don`t take too kindly to tests these days - what with ctbt and all that.]
Finally, I saw a photograph of India`s first test bomb being lowered into the testing shaft. An elongated design that looks like an air-dropped bomb. What with all the accumulated knowledge from 1945, the Indians managed to design the bomb for today`s planes. Nobody makes B-29s anymore and even they had their bomb bays specially modified to carry the Fat Man. Just historical information.
Regards.
[``By the way, the Fat Man weighed 10,000 lbs for its 20 kiloton output, way too much to be carried on the wings of a F-16. That is why you need new designs for nukes.``
YOU as in Pakistan or India - Yes, I know - Let me also add that folks don`t take too kindly to tests these days - what with ctbt and all that.]
Finally, I saw a photograph of India`s first test bomb being lowered into the testing shaft. An elongated design that looks like an air-dropped bomb. What with all the accumulated knowledge from 1945, the Indians managed to design the bomb for today`s planes. Nobody makes B-29s anymore and even they had their bomb bays specially modified to carry the Fat Man. Just historical information.
Regards.
#554 Posted by harimau on February 5, 2002 11:35:36 am
Ref rajanjua #: 585
[i do not know who hoare is - courant, hilbert and von neumann are the sort of people i am familiar with.
algol!! i am sure there must be something useful about algol - but imsl, lapack, blas, etc. are not written in algol.]
I should have known better than to argue with a numerical analyst as opposed to a computer science-type guy! Anyway, very few computer science departments emphasize numerical analysis and it has drifted back to the math department in many universities.
Hoare is a professor of Computer Science and quite a pioneer in languages and operating systems. His comment on Algol was after he saw the popularity of Pascal and C and their increasing use.
[I am glad you finally see the usefulness of these machines.]
Oh, I have always accepted the usefulness of these machines but I object to their high costs. If an R8000 can run at half the speed of a Cray for 5% of the cost, it would make sense to buy the R8000 and spend the rest of the money on something more useful. Like I read somewhere about American and Russian fighter jet manufacturing: Americans use the same standard for riveting body panels together on the F-16. The Russians take care in those areas where they knoe the stresses will be high and are somewhat sloppy in other places.
Interestingly, most of the superscalar aspects that you see in microprocessors such as the HyperSPARC or the Pentium were all pioneered in early machines such as the CDC6600 back in the mid-60s.
[Hennessey, perhaps, was not aware of SV1, when he wrote the above.]
Probably not but in all probability the SV-1 has more memory and higher clock speed without any major changes in architecture, both of which are available for competing non-vector-processing machines also.
[I will not declare victory or for that matter go to war in the first place with someone who last programmed 20 years back and probably falls in the category of uncle jay :-) ]
Don`t tell me you find programming fascinating. I could stand about three years of it. After that it was a drudgery for the next couple of years. And then I got out of it.
[And only way to find out would be 5 years from now - so why keep arguing about it eh?]
Agreed. Will Chowk last 5 years for us to continue the debate in 2007?
Regards.
[i do not know who hoare is - courant, hilbert and von neumann are the sort of people i am familiar with.
algol!! i am sure there must be something useful about algol - but imsl, lapack, blas, etc. are not written in algol.]
I should have known better than to argue with a numerical analyst as opposed to a computer science-type guy! Anyway, very few computer science departments emphasize numerical analysis and it has drifted back to the math department in many universities.
Hoare is a professor of Computer Science and quite a pioneer in languages and operating systems. His comment on Algol was after he saw the popularity of Pascal and C and their increasing use.
[I am glad you finally see the usefulness of these machines.]
Oh, I have always accepted the usefulness of these machines but I object to their high costs. If an R8000 can run at half the speed of a Cray for 5% of the cost, it would make sense to buy the R8000 and spend the rest of the money on something more useful. Like I read somewhere about American and Russian fighter jet manufacturing: Americans use the same standard for riveting body panels together on the F-16. The Russians take care in those areas where they knoe the stresses will be high and are somewhat sloppy in other places.
Interestingly, most of the superscalar aspects that you see in microprocessors such as the HyperSPARC or the Pentium were all pioneered in early machines such as the CDC6600 back in the mid-60s.
[Hennessey, perhaps, was not aware of SV1, when he wrote the above.]
Probably not but in all probability the SV-1 has more memory and higher clock speed without any major changes in architecture, both of which are available for competing non-vector-processing machines also.
[I will not declare victory or for that matter go to war in the first place with someone who last programmed 20 years back and probably falls in the category of uncle jay :-) ]
Don`t tell me you find programming fascinating. I could stand about three years of it. After that it was a drudgery for the next couple of years. And then I got out of it.
[And only way to find out would be 5 years from now - so why keep arguing about it eh?]
Agreed. Will Chowk last 5 years for us to continue the debate in 2007?
Regards.
#553 Posted by rajanjua on February 4, 2002 9:02:20 pm
re: harimau
``By the way, the Fat Man weighed 10,000 lbs for its 20 kiloton output, way too much to be carried on the wings of a F-16. That is why you need new designs for nukes.``
YOU as in Pakistan or India - Yes, I know - Let me also add that folks don`t take too kindly to tests these days - what with ctbt and all that.
``Yaaaawn. JAVA is a sucky language and I haven`t coded in 20 years. I agree with CAR Hoare that Algol-60 is an improvement over all of its successors as a programming language. Of course that statement presupposes that you know who CAR Hoare is. (Grin)``
you are being too rough on sun and java, man. i don`t use that language even for windows - which i find quite distasteful. i do not know who hoare is - courant, hilbert and von neumann are the sort of people i am familiar with.
algol!! i am sure there must be something useful about algol - but imsl, lapack, blas, etc. are not written in algol.
``Reagrding partial differential equations, the solution on a computer is necessarily a numerical approach. The results always approximate reality in the absence of closed-form analytical solutions and thus the need for greater precision in arithmetic as well as for vector processing to process very large number of data elements. The CDC6600 had 60-bit wide floating-point numbers for the improved precision and the Cray added vector processing facilities.``
I am glad you finally see the usefulness of these machines.
``Whether the range of applications for which the C-90 has a substantial performance advantage will remain large enough to justify the premium price for vector computers remains to be seen.``
Oye yaar - Cray ko bakhash day - tera kiya bigaRa-a us nay :-) Hennessey, perhaps, was not aware of SV1, when he wrote the above.
``What? A unilateral declaration of victory? I would want a cease-fire!``
Victory? cease-fire? I will not declare victory or for that matter go to war in the first place with someone who last programmed 20 years back and probably falls in the category of uncle jay :-) In a nutshell, let me summarise it - You think the supercomputers/vector machines will not be in use within 5 years - I disagree - I think they will be around for quite some time - These are just opinions - And only way to find out would be 5 years from now - so why keep arguing about it eh?
Regards.
``By the way, the Fat Man weighed 10,000 lbs for its 20 kiloton output, way too much to be carried on the wings of a F-16. That is why you need new designs for nukes.``
YOU as in Pakistan or India - Yes, I know - Let me also add that folks don`t take too kindly to tests these days - what with ctbt and all that.
``Yaaaawn. JAVA is a sucky language and I haven`t coded in 20 years. I agree with CAR Hoare that Algol-60 is an improvement over all of its successors as a programming language. Of course that statement presupposes that you know who CAR Hoare is. (Grin)``
you are being too rough on sun and java, man. i don`t use that language even for windows - which i find quite distasteful. i do not know who hoare is - courant, hilbert and von neumann are the sort of people i am familiar with.
algol!! i am sure there must be something useful about algol - but imsl, lapack, blas, etc. are not written in algol.
``Reagrding partial differential equations, the solution on a computer is necessarily a numerical approach. The results always approximate reality in the absence of closed-form analytical solutions and thus the need for greater precision in arithmetic as well as for vector processing to process very large number of data elements. The CDC6600 had 60-bit wide floating-point numbers for the improved precision and the Cray added vector processing facilities.``
I am glad you finally see the usefulness of these machines.
``Whether the range of applications for which the C-90 has a substantial performance advantage will remain large enough to justify the premium price for vector computers remains to be seen.``
Oye yaar - Cray ko bakhash day - tera kiya bigaRa-a us nay :-) Hennessey, perhaps, was not aware of SV1, when he wrote the above.
``What? A unilateral declaration of victory? I would want a cease-fire!``
Victory? cease-fire? I will not declare victory or for that matter go to war in the first place with someone who last programmed 20 years back and probably falls in the category of uncle jay :-) In a nutshell, let me summarise it - You think the supercomputers/vector machines will not be in use within 5 years - I disagree - I think they will be around for quite some time - These are just opinions - And only way to find out would be 5 years from now - so why keep arguing about it eh?
Regards.
#552 Posted by harimau on February 4, 2002 11:05:14 am
Ref rajanjua #: 583
[You have no idea what you are talking about - do you? :-) That`s ok - nuclear-thingee was just one example. Do a web search on ``high performance computing`` or ``grand challenge`` and educate yourself.]
Why don`t YOU do a search on ``High Energy Weapons Archive`` and find out a little bit more about the history, physics and design of nuclear weapons?
A model of the Fat Man is on display in the lobby at Los Alamos but who knows, visitors from Pakistan may no longer be welcome there. The Fat Man design is described in detail at the High Energy Weapons site. Turn on the TV once in a while and watch the History Channel. In the show on nuclear weapons, you can see the perfectly spherical shape of the device tested at Alomogordo. By the way, the Fat Man weighed 10,000 lbs for its 20 kiloton output, way too much to be carried on the wings of a F-16. That is why you need new designs for nukes.
The High Energy Weapons site talks about the efficiency of the nuclear reactions in weapons. The Hiroshima bomb is estimated to have had a 1.2% efficiency; i.e., 1.2% of the total uranium was converted into energy.
Be prepared to spend a couple of months at least if you decide to visit the High Energy Weapons site.
[There`s a world of difference between writing a gui in java and writing code to solve multidimensional partial differential equations which model complex physical phenomenon. The need for supercomputers is not based on employment opportunities for folks at LANL.]
Yaaaawn. JAVA is a sucky language and I haven`t coded in 20 years. I agree with CAR Hoare that Algol-60 is an improvement over all of its successors as a programming language. Of course that statement presupposes that you know who CAR Hoare is. (Grin)
Reagrding partial differential equations, the solution on a computer is necessarily a numerical approach. The results always approximate reality in the absence of closed-form analytical solutions and thus the need for greater precision in arithmetic as well as for vector processing to process very large number of data elements. The CDC6600 had 60-bit wide floating-point numbers for the improved precision and the Cray added vector processing facilities.
Hennessy and Patterson in their book on Computer Architecture say: Overall, a Cray C-90 processor has a SPECfp rating that is about 1.8 times higher than an R8000 processor and a price almost 20 times higher. On some benchmarks, however, the C-90 is over five times faster; while on others it is about half the speed of the R8000. Whether the range of applications for which the C-90 has a substantial performance advantage will remain large enough to justify the premium price for vector computers remains to be seen.
[Now if you don`t mind lets give this a rest, eh?]
What? A unilateral declaration of victory? I would want a cease-fire!
[Your vision of one-super-fast-chip based computer is ofcourse very nice indeed - And I`ll be celabrating it - when that happens - untill that time I am grateful for both the beowulfs and the trusty ol` SX5s and O3Ks.]
Re-read what I quoted from Hennsessy and Patterson above.
Regards.
[You have no idea what you are talking about - do you? :-) That`s ok - nuclear-thingee was just one example. Do a web search on ``high performance computing`` or ``grand challenge`` and educate yourself.]
Why don`t YOU do a search on ``High Energy Weapons Archive`` and find out a little bit more about the history, physics and design of nuclear weapons?
A model of the Fat Man is on display in the lobby at Los Alamos but who knows, visitors from Pakistan may no longer be welcome there. The Fat Man design is described in detail at the High Energy Weapons site. Turn on the TV once in a while and watch the History Channel. In the show on nuclear weapons, you can see the perfectly spherical shape of the device tested at Alomogordo. By the way, the Fat Man weighed 10,000 lbs for its 20 kiloton output, way too much to be carried on the wings of a F-16. That is why you need new designs for nukes.
The High Energy Weapons site talks about the efficiency of the nuclear reactions in weapons. The Hiroshima bomb is estimated to have had a 1.2% efficiency; i.e., 1.2% of the total uranium was converted into energy.
Be prepared to spend a couple of months at least if you decide to visit the High Energy Weapons site.
[There`s a world of difference between writing a gui in java and writing code to solve multidimensional partial differential equations which model complex physical phenomenon. The need for supercomputers is not based on employment opportunities for folks at LANL.]
Yaaaawn. JAVA is a sucky language and I haven`t coded in 20 years. I agree with CAR Hoare that Algol-60 is an improvement over all of its successors as a programming language. Of course that statement presupposes that you know who CAR Hoare is. (Grin)
Reagrding partial differential equations, the solution on a computer is necessarily a numerical approach. The results always approximate reality in the absence of closed-form analytical solutions and thus the need for greater precision in arithmetic as well as for vector processing to process very large number of data elements. The CDC6600 had 60-bit wide floating-point numbers for the improved precision and the Cray added vector processing facilities.
Hennessy and Patterson in their book on Computer Architecture say: Overall, a Cray C-90 processor has a SPECfp rating that is about 1.8 times higher than an R8000 processor and a price almost 20 times higher. On some benchmarks, however, the C-90 is over five times faster; while on others it is about half the speed of the R8000. Whether the range of applications for which the C-90 has a substantial performance advantage will remain large enough to justify the premium price for vector computers remains to be seen.
[Now if you don`t mind lets give this a rest, eh?]
What? A unilateral declaration of victory? I would want a cease-fire!
[Your vision of one-super-fast-chip based computer is ofcourse very nice indeed - And I`ll be celabrating it - when that happens - untill that time I am grateful for both the beowulfs and the trusty ol` SX5s and O3Ks.]
Re-read what I quoted from Hennsessy and Patterson above.
Regards.
#551 Posted by rajanjua on February 4, 2002 12:50:46 am
``The US just added fins to the sphere for stability and dropped it on Nagasaki. Such a bomb won`t fit under the wing of an F-16 and you had to design an elongated bomb. Of course, all the nuclear countries merely tested their designs in the absence of supercomputers but how many more designs does one need? I suspect that the point of diminishing returns has been reached and all this talk of simulating thermonuclear weapons is to keep the scientists at Los Alamos employed.``
You have no idea what you are talking about - do you? :-) That`s ok - nuclear-thingee was just one example. Do a web search on ``high performance computing`` or ``grand challenge`` and educate yourself.
There`s a world of difference between writing a gui in java and writing code to solve multidimensional partial differential equations which model complex physical phenomenon. The need for supercomputers is not based on employment opportunities for folks at LANL.
Now if you don`t mind lets give this a rest, eh? Your vision of one-super-fast-chip based computer is ofcourse very nice indeed - And I`ll be celabrating it - when that happens - untill that time I am grateful for both the beowulfs and the trusty ol` SX5s and O3Ks.
You have no idea what you are talking about - do you? :-) That`s ok - nuclear-thingee was just one example. Do a web search on ``high performance computing`` or ``grand challenge`` and educate yourself.
There`s a world of difference between writing a gui in java and writing code to solve multidimensional partial differential equations which model complex physical phenomenon. The need for supercomputers is not based on employment opportunities for folks at LANL.
Now if you don`t mind lets give this a rest, eh? Your vision of one-super-fast-chip based computer is ofcourse very nice indeed - And I`ll be celabrating it - when that happens - untill that time I am grateful for both the beowulfs and the trusty ol` SX5s and O3Ks.
#550 Posted by harimau on February 3, 2002 2:27:46 pm
Ref rajanjua #: 581
[Numbers don`t count that much - Its more a matter of requirement. You can`t simulate a thermo-nuclear explosion on a beowulf right now (does`nt matter how many nodes it has) or in the near future. I don`t know the numbers for Cray/SGI - I do remember reading that the Japenese companies like NEC and Fujitsu have grabbed a big market share from the U.S. companies. As long as there is a need for these machines - governments will subsidise the companies which make these machines.]
It can be shown mathematically that a nuclear weapon blows itself up faster than it can burn all the nuclear fuel. There is no way you can exceed 10%-20% efficiency in a nuke, the lower number for uranium weapons and the higher number for plutonium weapons. All the fancy-schmancy designs that you simulate are to check if a different configuration would work. For instance, the first plutonium design Fat Man was a sphere because it is comparatively easier to squeeze in all directions simultaneously to achieve implosion rather than along just one or two axes and not have the core behave like a ballon squeezed at one point. The US just added fins to the sphere for stability and dropped it on Nagasaki. Such a bomb won`t fit under the wing of an F-16 and you had to design an elongated bomb. Of course, all the nuclear countries merely tested their designs in the absence of supercomputers but how many more designs does one need? I suspect that the point of diminishing returns has been reached and all this talk of simulating thermonuclear weapons is to keep the scientists at Los Alamos employed. Otherwise, they could be looking for jobs in the open market and we all know Col. Gaddhafi has got deep pockets.
[Sun might call their E10Ks supercomputers - but come on - compared to a NEC machine its a piece of junk.]
I HATE Sun! But the fact is they sell those machines by the millions to rake in revenues of, what, $8 billion?
[I am sure that scout is not going to buy/sell SGI stocks based on our discussion.]
I am making my prediction based on all those guys who made special-purpose computers who have gone bust. CDC, Cray, that company in the Northwest that made floating-point processors (we are talking room-sized boxes here), etc.
[re: tahmed (big blue)
I don`t know what happened to the IBM machine, tahmed - there was a big fuss about the Kasparov match sometimes back.]
The chess machine was an RS-6000SP system with a couple of hundred processor boards. Wasn`t Deep Thought the next version of it? Anyway, those machines are being sold primarily for data mining applications against humongous databases.
[Numbers don`t count that much - Its more a matter of requirement. You can`t simulate a thermo-nuclear explosion on a beowulf right now (does`nt matter how many nodes it has) or in the near future. I don`t know the numbers for Cray/SGI - I do remember reading that the Japenese companies like NEC and Fujitsu have grabbed a big market share from the U.S. companies. As long as there is a need for these machines - governments will subsidise the companies which make these machines.]
It can be shown mathematically that a nuclear weapon blows itself up faster than it can burn all the nuclear fuel. There is no way you can exceed 10%-20% efficiency in a nuke, the lower number for uranium weapons and the higher number for plutonium weapons. All the fancy-schmancy designs that you simulate are to check if a different configuration would work. For instance, the first plutonium design Fat Man was a sphere because it is comparatively easier to squeeze in all directions simultaneously to achieve implosion rather than along just one or two axes and not have the core behave like a ballon squeezed at one point. The US just added fins to the sphere for stability and dropped it on Nagasaki. Such a bomb won`t fit under the wing of an F-16 and you had to design an elongated bomb. Of course, all the nuclear countries merely tested their designs in the absence of supercomputers but how many more designs does one need? I suspect that the point of diminishing returns has been reached and all this talk of simulating thermonuclear weapons is to keep the scientists at Los Alamos employed. Otherwise, they could be looking for jobs in the open market and we all know Col. Gaddhafi has got deep pockets.
[Sun might call their E10Ks supercomputers - but come on - compared to a NEC machine its a piece of junk.]
I HATE Sun! But the fact is they sell those machines by the millions to rake in revenues of, what, $8 billion?
[I am sure that scout is not going to buy/sell SGI stocks based on our discussion.]
I am making my prediction based on all those guys who made special-purpose computers who have gone bust. CDC, Cray, that company in the Northwest that made floating-point processors (we are talking room-sized boxes here), etc.
[re: tahmed (big blue)
I don`t know what happened to the IBM machine, tahmed - there was a big fuss about the Kasparov match sometimes back.]
The chess machine was an RS-6000SP system with a couple of hundred processor boards. Wasn`t Deep Thought the next version of it? Anyway, those machines are being sold primarily for data mining applications against humongous databases.
#549 Posted by rajanjua on February 2, 2002 10:15:46 am
``Yes, but in what quantities? And what does the future look like?``
Numbers don`t count that much - Its more a matter of requirement. You can`t simulate a thermo-nuclear explosion on a beowulf right now (does`nt matter how many nodes it has) or in the near future. I don`t know the numbers for Cray/SGI - I do remember reading that the Japenese companies like NEC and Fujitsu have grabbed a big market share from the U.S. companies. As long as there is a need for these machines - governments will subsidise the companies which make these machines.
``Sun is selling workstations in the hundreds of thousands a year.``
Sun might call their E10Ks supercomputers - but come on - compared to a NEC machine its a piece of junk.
``the future seems to lie in ever faster boxes with just a couple of processors in them. No fancy-schmancy parallel processing for them.``
Yes it would be nice to have a single super-fast processor. Parallelising code is not fancy - its bloody tedious.
``I still stand by my statement that SGI will be out of business in 5 years, taking Cray and MIPS with it.``
OK yaar!! - If that makes you happy - I am sure that scout is not going to buy/sell SGI stocks based on our discussion.
re: tahmed (big blue)
I don`t know what happened to the IBM machine, tahmed - there was a big fuss about the Kasparov match sometimes back.
Numbers don`t count that much - Its more a matter of requirement. You can`t simulate a thermo-nuclear explosion on a beowulf right now (does`nt matter how many nodes it has) or in the near future. I don`t know the numbers for Cray/SGI - I do remember reading that the Japenese companies like NEC and Fujitsu have grabbed a big market share from the U.S. companies. As long as there is a need for these machines - governments will subsidise the companies which make these machines.
``Sun is selling workstations in the hundreds of thousands a year.``
Sun might call their E10Ks supercomputers - but come on - compared to a NEC machine its a piece of junk.
``the future seems to lie in ever faster boxes with just a couple of processors in them. No fancy-schmancy parallel processing for them.``
Yes it would be nice to have a single super-fast processor. Parallelising code is not fancy - its bloody tedious.
``I still stand by my statement that SGI will be out of business in 5 years, taking Cray and MIPS with it.``
OK yaar!! - If that makes you happy - I am sure that scout is not going to buy/sell SGI stocks based on our discussion.
re: tahmed (big blue)
I don`t know what happened to the IBM machine, tahmed - there was a big fuss about the Kasparov match sometimes back.
#548 Posted by harimau on February 1, 2002 7:17:52 pm
Ref rajanjua #: 576
[NEC SX5, Cray SV1 & SV2, IBM ASCI and SGI O3K series are some of the machines still being made, sold and bought.]
Yes, but in what quantities? And what does the future look like?
[Cluster computing is taking over, but will not replace all of the big machines any time soon.]
Agreed.
[Like I said some applications can`t be parallelised easily/efficiently and are more suited for vector machines.]
Agreed.
[The workstations, like the Sun Sparc or the IBM RISC6000 type of machines are pretty much finished.]
Sun is selling workstations in the hundreds of thousands a year. Most semiconductor companies run their chip design software on Unix boxes. Even IBM, on the RS/6000s. They have a facility in Austin with literally thousands of RS/6000s and terabytes of storage to design their next generation of chips. Nobody might have bet on uniprocessing in the 1970s as the way to speed up things but with the difficulties in parallelizing algorithms and with vector processing (the specialty of Cray computers, and earlier, the CDCs) very limited in application scope, the future seems to lie in ever faster boxes with just a couple of processors in them. No fancy-schmancy parallel processing for them.
Even companies such as Sequent with several processors used those processors for running multiple programs as opposed to single large applications such as weather prediction, nuclear explosion simulation or chip simulation.
I still stand by my statement that SGI will be out of business in 5 years, taking Cray and MIPS with it.
[NEC SX5, Cray SV1 & SV2, IBM ASCI and SGI O3K series are some of the machines still being made, sold and bought.]
Yes, but in what quantities? And what does the future look like?
[Cluster computing is taking over, but will not replace all of the big machines any time soon.]
Agreed.
[Like I said some applications can`t be parallelised easily/efficiently and are more suited for vector machines.]
Agreed.
[The workstations, like the Sun Sparc or the IBM RISC6000 type of machines are pretty much finished.]
Sun is selling workstations in the hundreds of thousands a year. Most semiconductor companies run their chip design software on Unix boxes. Even IBM, on the RS/6000s. They have a facility in Austin with literally thousands of RS/6000s and terabytes of storage to design their next generation of chips. Nobody might have bet on uniprocessing in the 1970s as the way to speed up things but with the difficulties in parallelizing algorithms and with vector processing (the specialty of Cray computers, and earlier, the CDCs) very limited in application scope, the future seems to lie in ever faster boxes with just a couple of processors in them. No fancy-schmancy parallel processing for them.
Even companies such as Sequent with several processors used those processors for running multiple programs as opposed to single large applications such as weather prediction, nuclear explosion simulation or chip simulation.
I still stand by my statement that SGI will be out of business in 5 years, taking Cray and MIPS with it.
#547 Posted by Pankaj on February 1, 2002 7:17:52 pm
rjanjua#575
``Like I said some applications can`t be parallelised easily/efficiently and are more suited for vector machines.``
You are right. Only those algorithms which do not involve too much communication between module interfaces can be successfully parallelized. Actually interface between parallel machines through which the communication occurs is the rate limiting step. This is the reason the total computing time doesn`t decrease tenfold if you employ 10 machines for the same work. On the other hand if there is too much communication between the machines at every stage of algorithm, you might be better off using a single powerful machine instead of 10 parallel machines.
``Like I said some applications can`t be parallelised easily/efficiently and are more suited for vector machines.``
You are right. Only those algorithms which do not involve too much communication between module interfaces can be successfully parallelized. Actually interface between parallel machines through which the communication occurs is the rate limiting step. This is the reason the total computing time doesn`t decrease tenfold if you employ 10 machines for the same work. On the other hand if there is too much communication between the machines at every stage of algorithm, you might be better off using a single powerful machine instead of 10 parallel machines.
#546 Posted by tahmed321 on February 1, 2002 2:23:10 pm
rajanjua: Talking of supercomputers - I dont know where IBM is with Big Blue. The information management needs of the genetic industry is outstripping the capacity of the computer industry, I understand, Moore`s Law notwithstanding. And Big Blue was IBMs Big White Hope for making some money by bridging the gap.
#545 Posted by tahmed321 on January 31, 2002 10:20:45 pm
Romair #574 ``As for oaths I took in the military, there were so many that I cannot recall all of them: There was one towards defending our borders. One towards not lying nor cheating. One towards not disclosing secrets to the enemy. One towards obeying senior officers. One towards upholding the honor of our units. So on and so forth.....``
Any oath about protecting and defending the constitution?????
``Even the corrupt amongst the Generals, in my opinion, wouldn`t hesitate to lay down their lives to defend Pakistan. ``
Too bad destiny denied this opportunity before they took their kickbacks and stashed them in foreign banks, or purchased land in Texas and Kentucky, or real estate in Virginia, and then packed up their bags and took the next flight to New York or London or patriotically used the money to speculate in plots in Islamabad and ``Defence Colonies`` around the country.
Any oath about protecting and defending the constitution?????
``Even the corrupt amongst the Generals, in my opinion, wouldn`t hesitate to lay down their lives to defend Pakistan. ``
Too bad destiny denied this opportunity before they took their kickbacks and stashed them in foreign banks, or purchased land in Texas and Kentucky, or real estate in Virginia, and then packed up their bags and took the next flight to New York or London or patriotically used the money to speculate in plots in Islamabad and ``Defence Colonies`` around the country.
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