---
title: "FLOPS · Library · Simulation Hypothesis"
url: https://simulation-hypothesis.com/library/flops
description: "FLOPS means floating-point operations per second."
license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
credit: "Ross Allan Dahl, Simulation Hypothesis (simulation-hypothesis.com)"
---

## Physics & computation

# FLOPS

Definition

FLOPS means floating-point operations per second. It measures how much arithmetic a machine can do. A modern laptop does around 10^13, and the largest supercomputers around 10^18.

On this site

The main figure on every tile. Everything else on the site is worked out from it.

Role in the model

FLOPS is the unit for the whole site. Every tile and bar shows a rate of operations per second, scaled differently. If you know what a laptop’s ten trillion FLOPS can and can’t do, you can read every other figure by counting orders of magnitude.

Related

[Lloyd’s bound](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/library/lloyd-bound)[Landauer limit](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/library/landauer-limit)

## The people behind the terms

14 short pages, one per thinker, each with its matching dial. See also the [reading list](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/reading).

[Plato’s cave](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/plato)[Zhuangzi’s butterfly](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/zhuangzi)[Vasubandhu’s dream](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/vasubandhu)[Shankara’s māyā](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/shankara)[al-Ghazali’s doubt](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/ghazali)[Ibn Arabi’s imagination](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/ibn-arabi)[Calderón’s life is a dream](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/calderon)[Descartes’ demon](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/descartes)[Berkeley’s perceiver](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/berkeley)[Borges’ circular ruins](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/borges)[Nozick’s experience machine](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/nozick)[Putnam’s brain in a vat](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/putnam)[Bostrom’s trilemma](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/bostrom)[Chalmers: virtual worlds are real](https://simulation-hypothesis.com/thinkers/chalmers)