[AusNOG] Solar flare

[Quentin Rittman]

So to summarise?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTfWOhDGifY

 

 

From: ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net
[mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Paul Brooks
Sent: Thursday, 8 March 2012 5:54 PM
To: ausnog at lists.ausnog.net
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Solar flare

 

On 8/03/2012 5:03 PM, Scott Howard wrote: 

On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 9:47 PM, Peter Childs <PChilds at internode.com.au>
wrote:

<quote>
> As with all computer and networking devices, the AS5400 is susceptible to
> the rare occurrence of parity errors in processor memory.  Parity errors
may


These excuses may seem far-fetched, and I used to get a lot of unbelieving
looks when I gave this excuse when I was an engineer at Sun - but the simple
fact is that it IS true.

And by true, what I mean is that cosmic rays can and do cause bits to flip,
especially in the type of memory used in CPU caches.  What may or may not be
true is if any specific occurrence was due to cosmic rays - because
obviously there's no way to prove that one way or another!


As someone who has used and built cosmic-ray and gamma-ray telescopes in the
past, I can vouch for this. 
 
Cosmic-ray hits show up well in long time exposures of CCD chips
<http://www.astronomy.com/sitefiles/utilities/image.aspx?item=%7B2771D938-60
A1-4CD7-BA69-A90A23D62884%7D&mw=900&mh=650>  - which is just an array of
silicon memory gates at the end of the day.

And if your router  is in the cone of a cosmic ray air-shower cascade of
subatomic
particles.....http://th.physik.uni-frankfurt.de/~drescher/CASSIM/mFe2.mpg
:-)

P.

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