Abstract
Imagine playing your favorite video game, when suddenly, your character teleports to the top of the level. One may be quick to blame the software for faulty code, clueless that this error may have originated from an unlikely source: the sun. That’s right, during a speed run of Nintendo’s Super Mario 64, one stray cosmic ray flipped a single bit (a bit is the most basic unit of information inside a computer, storing one of only two possible values of 0 and 1), causing a streamer’s character to glitch in front of him and a live audience. This phenomenon, however, can be far more consequential than a video game - how about a national election? During Belgium’s 2003 federal vote, one candidate inexplicably received 4,096 extra votes, more than was mathematically possible. The voting machines did not catch any internal malfunctions, but investigators deemed it likely that this error originated from a bit flip in the voting machine’s memory, triggered by a high-energy particle from space (Johnston, 2017).
Recommended Citation
Markham, Ned
(2025)
"Computer Problems? Must Have Been the Sun How Solar Particles and Cosmic Rays Affect the Future of Computing,"
Osmosis Magazine: Vol. 2025:
Iss.
2, Article 20.
Available at:
https://scholarship.richmond.edu/osmosis/vol2025/iss2/20