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Copenhagen.
IGY has been very lively in recent days. Some committee members & physicists were very surprised that the 8 meteorologists came back alive from China, while other committee members were more concerned about their achievements in China.
"China has its own meteorological research institutions and weather forecasting network, which are very formal and built according to Soviet standards. They even have specialized schools of meteorology." Albert, a French meteorologist who came to China to observe, had to Explain some very basic knowledge, saying that China is not a barren land now.
"So, you guys stop auto-filling 'China is using the I Ching and dice to predict the weather' in your head."
"What China's meteorological research institutes and meteorological schools lack is the accumulation of knowledge and data. For the meteorological factors that can affect China, their data collection is not enough." Stagg added, "But China's atmospheric models and The principle of operation is very clear. As for the medium and long-term weather forecast, 8 of us have conducted field verification in China, and everyone’s conclusion is the same.”
IGY Secretary-General Marcel Nicolette: "That is to say, the Chinese have achieved medium and long-term weather forecasts in an area of about 200 million square kilometers in their country. Although this forecast is not particularly accurate, it has already produced social impact. It provides important reference value for disaster prevention and mitigation actions. The Chinese shot the arrow to the moon.”
Stagg: "Mr. Secretary, I'm going to follow your analogy. I don't see the bow that shoots an arrow to the moon."
Nicolette: "It is definitely not the C55 that China uses to calculate the medium and long-term weather forecast, but a newer generation of computers."
Stagg: "That depends on how you define 'newer generation computers.'"
"The Geophysical Society may use the results of your academic exchanges with China to try such calculations, just use this backward C55."
Stagg: "Then you can really try it."
Stagg left first.
He is going back to London, England immediately, and the C55 computer bill of lading in his hand is waiting to be used.You can pick up a computer from a sales office without paying, pay £10 to ship it home, and be ready to use. More than $100 million is a lot of money for Stagg, and he can't afford a C55 with his own money.
……
"My dear Marshal Montgomery, hello."
Montgomery did not know where to find out the news of Stagg's return to London, and sent someone to Stagg's residence the next day to invite him to be a guest.
After the war, Montgomery served as chief of staff of the Empire and deputy commander-in-chief of NATO. In 1958, when he was almost 71 years old, he decided to retire and enjoy retirement.
"Mr. Stagg, we met in 1944, at the Colchester barracks," Montgomery remembered well. "You are a successful meteorologist."
"My work is hard to describe as a success, Marshal. The weather is more difficult to figure out than the enemy army. We have never had a 100% victory."
Montgomery smiled: "At least you have been to China, and I can only stay in Europe. But it may have changed now, I just retired, and I am no longer a soldier...Did you see Chairman Mao in China?"
Stagg: "Yes, very lucky. When I was in China, the Yellow River in northern China encountered a serious flood threat. I improved the weather forecast system for the Chinese, so I crossed the flood crisis of the Yellow River in China. Afterwards, Mao received me, just like the officials from the China Meteorological Administration who also contributed to this crisis."
Montgomery: "Stage, you are one of the few people who met Churchill, Eisenhower, and Mao at the same time. Based on what you have seen and heard, can you describe the similarities and differences between Mao and the other two?"
Chapter 189, Nuclear Submarines Are Definitely Going On
Stagg: "Has a strong personality and decisive ability, but has a gentle appearance, which is close to Eisenhower. The similarity with Churchill is...both smoke."
"Say the key information. It's best to sum it up in one or two words."
"A brave man, and a poet. During the Yellow River flood crisis, his train was always within sight of the Yellow River's embankment, which would be flooded if it burst," Stagg said. "Besides, he was a poet." , has the temperament of a poet."
Montgomery stroked his chin and thought for a long time.
"Apart from meteorologists, who else can go to China now?" Montgomery asked.
Stagg: "Tea monger."
Montgomery: ...
"After retirement, I have a lot of things I want to do, and now I can do it without restrictions," Montgomery said. "One of the things is, I want to go to China."
……
Copenhagen.
The C55 computer of Aarhus University and the teaching staff operating the computer were borrowed by IGY. After studying the formulas of the thesis, they began to try to use the computer to calculate meteorological information.
Trying it out, the faculty and IGY geophysicists began to feel something was wrong.
The teaching staff said that this kind of data cannot be calculated at all, and the memory of the computer is not enough.Geophysicists asked whether it is possible to calculate a group of data at a time, and the calculated results are first stored in the external memory.
Tried this way once, but still failed.
It took a full 10 days and after various attempts were made, the computer operator discussed with the physicist and decided to change the strategy.
"Mr. Secretary-General, the C55 computer cannot be used for weather forecast calculations. This is our conclusion." The teaching staff said disappointedly.
Nicolette: "You let the computer run for 10 days, how many percent, or what fraction of a percent are you done?"
"We didn't calculate the mid-to-long-term weather forecast, and this computer couldn't run. We turned to another job: it took 10 days to calculate the amount of calculation needed to calculate the regional mid-to-long-term weather forecast."
Chapter 190, Computer Supremacy
"Mr. Secretary-General, do you think we should have closer exchanges with countries beyond the Iron Curtain in the fields of applied technology and industrial equipment?"
After the cooperation and exchanges in the field of weather forecasting were settled, Victor, a reporter from the Daily Telegraph, contacted IGY Secretary-General Nicolet, and the two sides conducted an interview similar to a discussion forum.
"The International Geophysical Year is a global communication event in physics, usually in the field of theoretical physics," Nicolette answered Victor's question, "but the boundary between physical theory and applied technology is not completely clear. It is also blurred with industrial equipment and technology. The medium and long-term weather forecast system has entered the intersection between theory and application.”
Victor: "A newsletter you wrote before highly praised this academic exchange between IGY and China. That is to say, China and the West exchanged applied technologies during this exchange?"
"Strictly speaking, no. Geophysicists exchanged their research results on geophysical theories, but during the exchanges we realized that the formed physical theory must be supported by computers before we can go one step further. But very Unfortunately, this communication is now cut off by the Paris Coordinating Committee."
Victor: "The purpose of establishing Batumi is that in order to maintain the international competitiveness of their industries, the group of countries with advanced industrial technology implements a policy of restricting the export of some cutting-edge technologies and equipment. Although this hurts the interests of some companies, A part of the income is lost, but it is a kind of protection for the foreign trade of the whole country."
"We are not advanced in all industrial fields. Lift the ban and carry out technical exchanges with China. We give them advanced technology, and they give us another advanced technology. This is a fair deal."
Victor: "Before I came here, I learned that the Chinese are slightly ahead of the West in the field of computer technology, although the United States has always denied this. In addition, China has unexpectedly stepped into the space club. This may be a project management strategy. In other industrial fields, we still have something to maintain our leading position."
Nicolette smiled wryly after hearing this.
Victor can say that China is slightly ahead in computer technology, which is already much more pragmatic than Americans.The current official mainstream statement in the United States is that "China obtained semiconductor technology from the American intelligentsia, improved it, and used China's endless cheap manpower to manufacture the C55 computer."
This kind of statement is used to fool the middle and lower class people in the United States on newspapers and TV. As for the upper class, some politicians know that things are not as optimistic as the official statement, but some politicians actually believe this statement.
Nicolette stopped laughing enough, and answered Victor: "Slightly ahead, well, whatever you say. In short, the current situation is: the basic theory of atmospheric physics, China and the West have conducted in-depth exchanges. But , China uses high-performance computers to practice these theories and obtain accurate weather forecasts; while we have the same theories in our hands, we cannot obtain weather forecasts.”
With the hard work of computer operators at Aarhus University and physicists at IGY, they initially estimated the amount of calculation required to make a regional mid-to-long-term weather forecast:
40 to 50 trillion times.
How long does it take to use a C55 computer?The answer may be infinite rather than simply dividing the total calculation amount by the C55's calculation speed.
For example, the weather forecast in a region involves thousands of air masses moving in three-dimensional vectors, and each air mass has to interact with adjacent air masses, which means that the computer needs to perform thousands of parallel calculations.If parallel computing cannot be done in this way, the theoretical computing speed of the computer is of little significance.
Although Stagg has never seen a Chinese computer, when passing by a certain street in Shanghai, Tu Changwang once pointed to a certain 5-story building several hundred meters away and said, "That is our computing center."
Back in Europe, Stagg summed up all this as China's "computer hegemony."
A colleague asked him, did you really use the word supremacy correctly?Stagg said it was the right word.
……