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SETI@home Explained, From Inside

Posted by timothy on from the how-much-is-the-grey-one-mommy? dept.

eheien writes: "The IEEE currently has an article detailing SETI@home, written by the project founders. The article goes into a great deal of detail on how SETI@home works, how sensitive the search is to signals (it can detect a cell phone on Saturn's moons), how successful it has been, and so on." It's a good read, and has some impressive numbers about the project that most SETI@home participants may not have realized.

2 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. One of these days... by eric2hill · · Score: 5

    ...there will be a SETI@Home story posted on /. and ET will finally make him/her-self known to the masses:

    ET (ET@QUADRA-5.EAM3002.GALAXY.NET)
    FIRST POST!
    Sorry. Humor for the evening :)

    --
    LOAD "SIG",8,1
    LOADING...
    READY.
    RUN
  2. Social experimentation. by re-Verse · · Score: 5

    I think the more interesting thing than the technology behind seti, is the sociology.

    Thousands of people are using it, religiously. I've been running it since it came out, i've overclocked my computer father, upgraded my processor, and even went so far as to install it quietly on the server farm at work :)
    I'm not sure if people are in to it because they Dig feeling like part of the worlds largest computation (information age mob mentality?) or simply because we're incredibly lonely and, more often than not, thourougly dissapointed in the human race. The fact that you have seti at home clubs and organizations, people hold personal meetings to discuss how many work units they've burned in the last month (I guess thats the other factor... what better way to flex your hardcore box), Almost outweighs the fact that you can hear cell phones on saturn... besides, from what i hear, the long distance rates from there are deadly.