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From: Stig Agermose <stig.agermose@get2net.dk>
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 1999 04:37:36
Fwd Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 21:46:57 -0400
Subject: SETI@home Screensaver Project Breaks Record


Source:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_423000/423022.stm

Stig

***


BBC News Online: Sci/Tech

Tuesday, August 17, 1999 Published at 18:11 GMT 19:11 UK

Alien hunter breaks record

By BBC News Online Science Editor Dr David Whitehouse

**

The SETI@home screensaver project, which allows anyone with a
desktop computer to join the search for intelligent life in
space, is now the largest computation ever done, on Earth at
least.

Since May, over a million people have downloaded the SETI@home
screensaver. But, despite an accumulated 50,000 years of
computer time, no signs of alien life have yet been found.

The SETI@home program has infiltrated homes, offices and
classrooms in 223 countries, "It is truly a phenomenon," said
SETI@home project director David Anderson. "One person runs it
in an office and pretty soon the whole office is doing it."

Companies large and small (including the BBC) as well as schools
and universities have formed groups to compete to see whose
computers can analyse the most chunks of data.

The program acts like a screen saver, starting when the computer
is idle and analysing data collected from the Arecibo radio
telescope in Puerto Rico.

The analysis is done automatically and the results are sent back
to the University of California at Berkeley, while participants
can see the progress on the computer screen.


Number cruncher


According to Professor Anderson it proves the value of
distributed computing and it has encouraged him to look around
for other projects that could benefit from this technique.

"SETI@home is now the largest computation ever done on this
planet, we have accumulated more than 50,000 years of computing
time so far," said project scientist Dan Werthimer, a research
physicist at the University of California Berkeley's Space
Sciences Laboratory.

"This also is the most sensitive sky survey ever conducted,"
Professor Werthimer added. SETI@home is so powerful because we
are using the world's largest telescope and we are able to use
it continuously, 24 hours a day, by piggybacking on other
observations."

Of the million people who have downloaded the software about
600,000 have completed at least one unit of data analysis.

Analysts say that the backlog of data from the Arecibo telescope
is rapidly disappearing, and Professor Anderson and his team are
currently updating the software to analyse the data again to
search for more complex signals.


Relevant Stories:

Is anybody out there?  (17 Aug 99 | Sci/Tech)
A signal from ET?  (31 Mar 99 | Sci/Tech)
Largest alien-hunting telescope planned  (09 Feb 99 | Sci/Tech)
Search for life on Mars with your computer  (15 Jun 98 | Sci/Tech)


Internet Links:

Seti@home
Seti
The Planetary Society Seti page
Arecibo Observatory


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