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2007-12-16

On putting a supercomputer in a former chapel

SEATTLE, Washington - A Sun employee has posted images of a supercomputer in Barcelona that happens to be located in a former chapel. (Yes, the blog entry is months old but this just popped up on digg.com yesterday.) Using an old chapel to house a supercomputer reminded of me of a passage James Francis wrote in The Double Helix (incorrect construction of possessives in the original):


The book I poked open the most was Francis' copy of The Nature of the Chemical Bond. Increasingly often, when Francis needed it to look up a crucial bond length, it would turn up on the quarter bench of lab space that John had given me for experimental work. Somewhere in Pauling's masterpiece I hoped the real secret would lie. Thus Francis' gift to me of a second copy was a good omen. On the flyleaf was the inscription, "To Jim from Francis - Christmas '51." The remnants of Christianity were indeed useful.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Obviously change was inevitable for the chapel, so if they could not keep it as the creator intended, at least they morphed it into something cool and very unique! It would be neat to see in person.