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== A Primer on Parallel Programming == | == A Primer on Parallel Programming == | ||
{{quote|To pull a bigger wagon it is easier to add more oxen | {{quote|To pull a bigger wagon it is easier to add more oxen than to find (or build) a bigger ox.|Gropp, Lusk & Skjellum|Using MPI}} | ||
In order to build a house as quickly as possible we do not look to a faster person to do all the construction more quickly, we use many people and spread the work among them so that tasks are being performed at the same time --- "in parallel". Computational problems are similar. There is a limit to how fast a single machine can work, so we attempt to divide up the problem and assign work to be completed concurrently to multiple computers. | In order to build a house as quickly as possible we do not look to a faster person to do all the construction more quickly, we use many people and spread the work among them so that tasks are being performed at the same time --- "in parallel". Computational problems are similar. There is a limit to how fast a single machine can work, so we attempt to divide up the problem and assign work to be completed concurrently to multiple computers. |