Sorting in Parallel
Ran Libeskind-Hadas · American Mathematical Monthly · 1998
In 1842, L.F. Menabrea anticipated the benefits of parallel computing in an article that appeared in the Swiss Journal Bibliotheque universelle de Geneve: When a long series of identical computations is to be performed, such as those required for the formation of numerical tables, the machine can be brought into play so as to give several results at the same time, which will greatly abridge the whole amount of the processes. Although more than a century passed before Menabrea's vision became a reality, today parallel computers with hundreds and even thousands of processors are used in a broad range of applications.