Cosmic Rays: what is the probability they will affect a program?

Posted by Mark Harrison on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Mark Harrison
Published on 2010-04-05T20:19:12Z Indexed on 2010/04/05 20:23 UTC
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error-detection

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statistics

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physics

Once again I was in a design review, and encountered the claim that the probability of a particular scenario was "less than the risk of cosmic rays" affecting the program, and it occurred to me that I didn't have the faintest idea what that probability is.

What is the probability of a cosmic ray hitting a computer and affecting the execution of the program?

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