VISUALIZATION

A new, $758,000 supercomputer will soon be delivered to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, where researchers from both ERAU and Bethune-Cookman College will have access to more powerful, faster data processing. The system is a Beowulf cluster of 262 computers stacked on shelves and hardwired together. "It will allow us to do all kinds of research," said Irwin Price, chancellor of Embry-Riddle. "The kind of analysis that would take a couple of days to run, we could do it in a matter of minutes." Chris Herbster, associate professor of meteorology at ERAU, said a 24-hour weather forecast that now takes six to eight hours will be done in 30 minutes, giving him and students more time to analyze their accuracy and make more projections. The system is also expected to aid in ERAU's plans for a computational mathematics program that will help solve science and engineering problems. It will be headquartered at ERAU's engineering tech building and is expected to be delivered in March. Funding for the system was provided from a National Science Foundation grant.