You lost me.
What is a 'parallel algorithm' if not any program in which more than one thread is executing. Of course I am aware that some algorithms have parallel and serial counterparts, but that's beside the point isn't it?
Okay, I went googleing and found a link that I think pretty clearly describes how JVM's map to an underlying architecture's threading model.
web page So in a one-to-one or many-to-many JVM model, you can have different threads running actually concurrently on separate processors.
Sean Walker<br />PMP, SCEA, SCWCD, SCJP