Philip Emeagwali - A father of the internet Written by Drahcir Semaj
In 1974, Philip Emeagwali read a 1922 science fiction article about how to use 64,000 mathematicians scattered around world to forecast weather for whole world. The theory intrigued him and 15 years later he developed a theory, HyperBall International Network, to use 65,000 computer processors scattered around world to forecast world’s weather. His theory was later used in weather forecasting but more importantly, HyperBall International Network is today known as Internet. Born in Nigeria in 1954, Emeagwali grew up poor in one of poorest countries in world. The son of James and Agatha Emeagwali, he lived typical life of a Nigerian child until 1967 when he had to leave school because of Nigeria-Biafara war. From 1967 to 1970 his family was homeless. They hid in refugee camps, abandoned buildings, and bombed out homes during ethnic cleansing in which 50,000 Igbos tribesmen were killed. “One of fifteen people in my hometown died in that 30-month war,” he said in a 2003 interview with jobpostings.net. “Both sides did not take prisoners of war; they did not want expense of caring for prisoners.” In 1968 he was conscripted into Biafran army as a child solider. After six months, civil war ended and he was reunited with his family. He returned to school, but later dropped out because his family could not afford his education. Emeagwali was determined to fulfill his education. Being a witness to destruction of his country gave him resolve to continue studying. “I came out stronger from civil war crisis,” he said, “I had self confidence and knew I had not fulfilled my potential.” He continued to study at home and in 1973 he earned his first diploma from University of London through correspondences courses. Later that year he won a scholarship to Oregon State University, where he intended to study mathematics; he excelled in his graduate studies at Oregon State. In 1974 he read a science fiction article on how to forecast weather using 64,000 mathematicians. The theory intrigued him and he began work on a theory on how to use 65,000 far-flung processors to forecast weather. He called this theory HyperBall International Network. His theory was so advanced for its time that it was rejected by his peers on grounds that it was impossible. Over next decade he was unable to find work but he continued to work on his dream. In 1987, Emeagwali submitted a proposal to gain access to “Connection Machine” at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The “Connection Machine”, a supercomputer with 65,536 processors, was available because it was considered impossible to program and there wasn’t a great demand for its time. Los Alamos scientists had been unable to program supercomputer and they were happy to give Emeagwali a chance to program it.
| | What Can My Article Be About?Written by Susan Dunn, Marketing Consultant, Coach
So you’ve caught on to how important it is to write articles on Internet if you want to promote your services and products. And you know you should be writing them. But you, yourself, see articles you know no one’s going to pick up because they’re advertisements, or boring, or full of grammatical errors and typos. In other words, you’re seeing a lot of same of thing, and you’re also seeing a lot of things you know aren’t print-worthy, and wondering what you can do that’s different. Or perhaps you aren’t good at writing, don’t like to, or simply do not have time. Anyone who is building a business or practice has their hands full juggling too many balls already, and if writing isn’t your forte, you likely do not have time to become good enough at it to be effective. Here’s an idea. How about interview? It has extra validity, because it’s about you, not by you; and well-written interviews are always interesting to read. There’s an art to it, but a professional writing service knows how to do this. And best of all – you don’t have to write it yourself! Here’s how it works. The writing service will research your services and products, and then interview you on a topic or topics, depending upon what you want to emphasize. A series of interviews is always a good idea, but you have to start somewhere. The service should provide you with a writer with an established reputation who is recognized on Internet for his or her quality writing and substance. This will increase chances of article being read and also of being published. Perhaps more than if you wrote it, if you are a newbie on ‘net. Not because you aren’t good; simply because your aren’t known. The cost is usually quite reasonable considering exposure this gives you, neutral 3rd party effect, and endorsement of a qualified writer. An experienced interview-writer can usually gather information they need in a 40 minute phone call after making a quick study of your website, and maybe an email or two with points you want to emphasize. You can also present an article you’ve written which can be “tweaked” into an interview by an experienced writer.
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