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Home
Authors
Philip Emeagwali
Scientist
About the author
The Connection Machine was the most powerful supercomputer in the world. It is a complex supercomputer and it will take forever to completely describe how it works.
Philip Emeagwali,
Scientist
#Will
#World
#Connection
#Machine
Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X came out of prison stronger.
Philip Emeagwali,
Scientist
#Prison
The greatest grand challenge for any scientist is discovering how to prevent the spread of HIV and finding the cure or an effective vaccine for AIDS.
Philip Emeagwali,
Scientist
#Challenge
#Cure
I wanted to become a mathematician, physicist or astronomer.
Philip Emeagwali,
Scientist
The hardships that I encountered in the past will help me succeed in the future.
Philip Emeagwali,
Scientist
#Will
#Past
#Help
#Succeed
#Future
The labs were happy that I was brave enough to attempt to program it and the $5 million computer was left entirely to my use. I was their human guinea pig.
Philip Emeagwali,
Scientist
#Computer
The Connection Machines owned by the United States government laboratories were made available to me because they were considered impossible to program and there was no great demand for them at that time.
Philip Emeagwali,
Scientist
#Time
#Government
#states
#United
#Connection
#Machines
Eighty percent of Americans with HIV do not know they are infected.
Philip Emeagwali,
Scientist
#Americans
Adversities such as being homeless and going to prison has made many people stronger.
Philip Emeagwali,
Scientist
#People
#Being
#Prison
Because I am not formally trained in the medical sciences, I can bring in new ideas to AIDS research and the cross-fertilization of ideas from different fields could be a valuable contribution to finding the cure for AIDS.
Philip Emeagwali,
Scientist
#Research
#Ideas
#Cure
#Medical
Because I believe that humans are computers, I conjectured that computers, like people, can have left- and right-handed versions.
Philip Emeagwali,
Scientist
#Right
#People
#Computers
Briefly, to program it requires an absolute understanding of how all 65,536 processors are interconnected.
Philip Emeagwali,
Scientist
#Understanding
My focus is not on solving nature's deeper mysteries. It is on using nature's deeper mysteries to solve important societal problems.
Philip Emeagwali,
Scientist
#Problems
#Nature
#Focus
During the week that I arrived in the United States, I saw an airport, used a telephone, used a library, talked with a scientist, and was shown a computer for the first time in my life.
Philip Emeagwali,
Scientist
#Time
#Life
#First
#states
#United
#Computer
It is smarter to borrow from nature than to reinvent the wheels.
Philip Emeagwali,
Scientist
#Nature
First, I identify an analogous problem in nature and borrow from it.
Philip Emeagwali,
Scientist
#First
#Nature
I dropped out of high school four times between the ages of 12 to 17.
Philip Emeagwali,
Scientist
#School
I have expertise in five different fields which helps me to easily understand the analogy between my scientific problems and those occurring in nature.
Philip Emeagwali,
Scientist
#Problems
#Nature
#Expertise
I preferred to study those subjects that were of interest to me.
Philip Emeagwali,
Scientist
#Study
#Interest
When I enrolled in college at age 19, I had a total of eight years of formal classroom education. As a result, I was not comfortable with formal lectures and receiving regular homework assignments.
Philip Emeagwali,
Scientist
#Years
#Result
#Age
#Education
#College
#Classroom
Due to financial reasons, I dropped out of school after eight years of formal schooling.
Philip Emeagwali,
Scientist
#Years
#School
#Financial
Our lives sometimes depend on computers performing as predicted.
Philip Emeagwali,
Scientist
#Computers
The 65,536 processors were inside the Connection Machine.
Philip Emeagwali,
Scientist
#Connection
#Machine
The hardship of living in a refugee camp made me psychologically strong.
Philip Emeagwali,
Scientist
#Living
#Hardship
Nigeria is a West African nation of over 100 million energetic people. It is endowed with lots of natural resources but lacks human resources.
Philip Emeagwali,
Scientist
#People
#Nation
#African
One out of every 100 American men is HIV positive. The rate of infection has reached epidemic proportions in 40 developing nations.
Philip Emeagwali,
Scientist
#American
#Men
#Positive
#Nations