Introduction of the LINPACK Benchmarks for the Measurement of Floating Point Computing Power

In 1979 American computer scientist Jack Dongarra (University of Tennesse, Knoxville and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN) together Jim Bunch, Cleve Moler and Pete Stewart developed the LINPACK Benchmark, a measure of a system's floating point computing power. The LINPACK benchmark measures how fast a computer solves a dense n by n system of linear equations Ax = b, which is a common task in engineering. It is the benchmark used in the twice-annual ranking of the world's supercomputers by Top500.org.