guardian.co.uk: It can see to the edge of the observable universe. It can peer back in time to the aftermath of the Big Bang. Just don’t ask it to send the secret of creation by e-mail.
The R332 million ($40 million) Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) is an internationally renowned science facility with everything but fast broadband. Its astronomers have found download speeds so slow that they are forced to send their cosmic findings by road.The problem is all too familiar to South African residents: painfully slow service delivery. Politicians have called on a telephone company to resolve the matter “before the country’s standing as a credible international scientific partner is irreparably damaged.”
Modeling the shapes of tree branches, neurons, and blood vessels is a thorny problem, but researchers have just discovered that much of the math has already been done.
