Teams Set New Long-range Speed Record with Next-generation Internet Protocol

Scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) have set a new Internet2 land speed record using the next-generation Internet protocol IPv6. The team sustained a single stream TCP rate of 983 megabits per second for more than one hour between the CERN facility in Geneva and Chicago, a distance of more than 7,000 kilometers. This is equivalent to transferring a full CD in 5.6 seconds.

Einstein Archives to Be Available Online

More than 900 scientific and nonscientific documents of one of the most influential intellects in the modern era, Albert Einstein, will soon be available online for the first time. The Einstein Archives Online website, at http://www.alberteinstein.info, will also be accompanied by an extensive database of archival information. It will be launched on May 19 during a daylong symposium on his life and work, to be held at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Researchers develop ultrafast Internet protocol

Caltech computer scientists have developed a new data transfer protocol for the Internet fast enough to download a full-length DVD movie in less than five seconds. The protocol is called FAST, standing for Fast Active queue management Scalable Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). The researchers have achieved a speed of 8,609 megabits per second (Mbps) by using 10 simultaneous flows of data over routed paths, the largest aggregate throughput ever accomplished in such a configuration. More importantly, the FAST protocol sustained this speed using standard packet size, stably over an extended period on shared networks in the presence of background traffic, making it adaptable for deployment on the world’s high-speed production networks.

Caltech and MIT to Face-off in Major Internet Chess Match

Caltech?s top chess players will compete in their first intercollegiate match of the year when they face MIT?s chess team on Sunday, March 2. The match will be held on the Internet Chess Club, the world?s largest online chess community, and will represent the first Internet chess match ever to take place between Caltech and MIT.

New Theory Accounts for Existence of Binaries in Kuiper Belt

In the last few years, researchers have discovered more than 500 objects in the Kuiper belt, a gigantic outer ring in the outskirts of the solar system, beyond the orbit of Neptune. Of these, seven so far have turned out to be binaries–two objects that orbit each other. The surprise is that these binaries all seem to be pairs of widely separated objects of similar size. This is surprising because more familiar pairings, such as the Earth/moon system, tend to be unequal in size and/or rather close together. To account for these oddities, scientists from the California Institute of Technology have devised a theory of Kuiper belt binary formation.