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Microsoft's Paul Allen Funds ET Search
Chris Gondek writes "Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, one of the richest men on Earth, today pledged to donate $US13.5 million ($17.99 million) for research into extra-terrestrial life. With the contribution, Allen will have given $US25 million ($33.32 million) for construction of the Allen Telescope Array (ATA), a network of 350 radio telescopes being built to find signs of life in space, said Thomas Pierson, director of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute."
The radio telescopes will measure the density of the early universe, the formation of stars and magnetic fields.
They will also be capable of searching for "possible signals from technologically advanced civilisations elsewhere in the galaxy," according to a SETI statement.
The announcement of Allen's donation coincided with the completion of the project's research and development phases, which Allen funded with an $US11.5 million ($15.33 million) donation.
The $US13.5 million donation will pay for the first two phases of construction of the ATA, according to the statement.
One network of 32 telescopes will be available for research by the end of 2004 and the entire network of 350 telescopes will be completed "late in the decade," it said.
SETI and the Radio Astronomy Laboratory of the University of California at Berkley teamed up for the ATA project.
"I am very excited to be supporting one of the world's most visionary efforts to seek basic answers to some of the fundamental question about our universe and what other civilisations may exist elsewhere," Allen said in a ceremony in Mountain View, California, where SETI is based.
A little interesting... What does SETI.org run?
Setec Astronomy
That's only one of a competing set of theories regarding the origin and function of the dollar sign. The etymology itself is pretty easy, but the sign has a number of possible explanations. (Scroll to the bottom.)
For instance, the theory you advanced was popularized by Ayn Rand.
Paul Allen gives to education, medical research, arts and music, etc.
in this age of communication i'm just not getting through
Well, if I could venture a guess, given the fact that story is on a *.au domain, that the figure in parentheses is in Australian dollars.
I hate sigs.
While Paul Allen was an integral part of the formation of MSFT, he has had little say in the Windows era of the company and I don't think it is correct to say "Microsoft's Paul Allen".
$ means "dollars"
In Mexico, $ means Pesos...
In fact, it means Pesos pretty much everywhere, as well as Reals (Brazil)
Laugh while you can, monkey-boy!
Last time i heard bill and his wife had given away over 40 billion dollars, now thats second hand but even it even half right i would say he is giving more than his fair share.
Sun has donated many machines (and possibly money) to the Seti Institute which would explain why they use Solaris.
Nope. Bill Gates donates cash. Not 'software, CDs of Office and XP.'
There's nothing wrong, I suppose, with having an anti-Microsoft sentiment overall. I'm personally in the process right now of moving all my home and home-business operations off Microsoft**. I'm not that fond of Microsoft. But even I know that the Gates Foundation giving is seperate from Microsoft and that it's cold cash they're distributing.
(** why the hell does OpenOffice pop up that damned 'Register Now' dialogue EVERY TIME I open it, even though I've registered it? And why is it such a fucking resource pig, even on this Pentium III 500 machine with 768 megs of RAM? I can run the important bits of Office 2000 reasonably well on my 486DX-2 75MHz laptop. Well, xfig and LyX do most of what I need anyway.)
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The historical meaning of $ is a U superimposed on an S.
You need to review your history, back to the day when the Mexican silver peso was the main mode of currency in the US (silver dollars, while struck not long after independence were not in widespread circulation until the mid XIX century).
The dollar symbol comes from the columns of Hercules in the Spanish crown crest. Crest that naturally was struck in the back of Mexican silver pesos during the XVI, XVII and XVIII centuries (you do know Mexico was once part of Spain, don't you?).
Send whiskey and fresh horses!