Astronomers Invent "Galaxy Game"

Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that astronomers have invented a game to help uncover the basis of galactic collisions, showing players images of colliding galaxies and asking them to match those to simulations. These galactic mergers could be the key to why the Universe contains a mixture of different galaxies — some with trailing spiral arms, others more like compact balls of stars. Astronomers say that humans are 'much better than computers' at spotting the patterns and similarities. 'The strength of the game is that it takes results from many people,' says Dr Chris Lintott from Oxford University, one of the members of the Galaxy Zoo team. The developers describe the game as a 'cosmic fruit machine' (i.e., slot machine). The game shows players one real galaxy image and, on command, eight randomly selected simulations pop into the 'slot'" surrounding that image. The aim is for players to choose the simulations that look most similar to the real galaxy and take those through to the next round to examine them further. The simulated images show the different aspects of galaxy formation, so as people play, they will generate data that will help astronomers understand these collisions. 'These collisions take millions of years to unfold,' says Anthony Holincheck, a graduate student at George Mason University and another member of the team. 'All we get from the Universe is a single snapshot of each one. [With] simulations, we will be able to watch each cosmic car crash unfold in the computer.'"

Comments

Dear Astronomers:

[Anonymous Coward]

Please use pattern matching.

Yours In Ashgabat,
Kilgore Trout.

P.S.: Please acknowledge this suggestion in Personal Communication in all publications about this method.

Re:Dear Astronomers:

[cupantae]

From TFA:

'The astronomers say that humans are "much better than computers" at spotting the patterns and similarities'

Presumably, they've thought of pattern matching as a means of matching patterns

Re:Dear Astronomers:

[mrsquid0]

Classifying merging is beyond the ability of most neural nets. It is easier, cheaper, and more reliable to let wet nets do the classifying. Besides, if we teach machines to classify galaxy collisions for us we are only a hop, skip, and jump away from skynet.

Re:Dear Astronomers:

[Island Admin]

So it is not time to welcome our electronic overlords yet?

Re:Dear Astronomers:

[Nefarious Wheel]

So it is not time to welcome our electronic overlords yet?

No, if you pull that mob before the healer chain is ready you can tank it yourself.

Re:Dear Astronomers:

[CarpetShark]

Please use pattern matching.

Regular expressions are not appropriate on a galactic scale.

Gotta love Google keyword ad-match spamming

[Tablizer]

And they can quote you the best insurance rates for galactic collisions.

Re:Gotta love Google keyword ad-match spamming

[sorak]

I love it when I look up NFS commands and all the ads are for the newest "Need For Speed" game.

Re:Gotta love Google keyword ad-match spamming

[vlm]

I love it when I look up NFS commands and all the ads are for the newest "Need For Speed" game.

Try googling for exportfs.

The weird stuff is found in a images.google.com search for exportfs. Not disturbing weird like a goatse, just plain old weird.

A pirate flag, some cartoon simpsons looking dude, pages of kanji, a picture of someones little white dog...

Re:Gotta love Google keyword ad-match spamming

[Anonymous Coward]

Cue the half dozen "what ads?" replies.

Re:Gotta love Google keyword ad-match spamming

[ndogg]

And I'm betting you could probably find one on eBay too.

Re:Gotta love Google keyword ad-match spamming

[CarpetShark]

Considering that there's a saggitarius starstream colliding with the milky way right now, and that, if it went horribly wrong instead, I'd probably die, I'd give you pretty good insurance on that too.

Boring

[inhuman_4]

I thought games were supposed to be fun. This just sounds like grunt work. Don't these researchers have grad students to do this kind of thing?

Re:Boring

[mrsquid0]

Something like this would be a waste of good grad students.

Re:Boring

[inhuman_4]

I had intended it to be a joke about grad students having to do the grunt work. But I guess my post wasn't very clear because I got modded down as a troll :(

That or I have been reading too much PhD comics.

Re:Boring

[Monkeedude1212]

You're just jealous I set the high score.

Re:Boring

[Fluffeh]

Actually, I think more to the point (some people might call that fun) I was wondering if it's a game, how do you "lose" or get out? Do they have one of the eight choices inserted as knowingly wrong? Bzzzt! Start over and see how many you can get in a row this time?

I am all for Galaxy Zoo and the like, but if it's more human brain grunt-working, just call it that, chances are the people who are keen to do it won't mind either way.

Re:Boring

[Kingrames]

No, he's pissed because he knows your initials aren't "ASS".

Re:Boring

[Deltaspectre]

They're fresh out of undergrads

Re:Boring

[Anonymous Coward]

just wait like 4chan start sabotaging the results until 2 galactic collisions results in longcat or something.

Re:Boring

[HitherYon]

I thought games were supposed to be fun. This just sounds like grunt work. Don't these researchers have grad students to do this kind of thing?

Fun? That's so old-school. Now it's all about how many hoops you can make your player base jump through for achievement points.

Re:Boring

[Zadaz]

Given the last few classes of grad students, no, not so much.

Re:Boring

[Nefarious Wheel]

Actually I've found out myself, a rather long time ago, that I was modding perfectly insightful comments to "troll" because I used the mouse wheel to scroll down before I clicked out of the little Mod drop-down box. Result? Some poor sod gets a karma hit. So there's some potential for your "troll" mod to have been that sort of mistake.

I'd much prefer that the bottom of the "moderate" list was a no-op, for that reason.

Re:Boring

[Nqdiddles]

Maybe we could just replace Solitaire with this on windows installs. Enough people spend some serious mind-numbing hours (over time at least) playing that, surely Galaxy Zoo couldn't be any less boring...

Hot or Not

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the astronomer equivalent of Hot or Not.

Re:Hot or Not

[maino82]

Supernova or Black hole

Better than "Find the black hole around Uranus!"

[Anonymous Coward]

So quit complaining.

Er...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, why of all places would one post this on /. where no one allows Java in their browser???

Wonder where they got this idea?

[Crouse45]

There's already a "game" that uses people to find the best way to fold protiens. http://fold.it/portal/info/science

Re:Wonder where they got this idea?

[chichilalescu]

Whether or not it's copied, it's a very good idea. Until we get smart enough computers, http://discovermagazine.com/2009/oct/06-brain-like-chip-may-solve-computers-big-problem-energy/article_view?b_start:int=0&-C= [discovermagazine.com], our best tools for understanding (finding the best model to fit given experimental data) are biological brains. Personally, I would pay game developers to think of translating problems in modern science into simple games for brains that wouldn't get bored too soon (like children, cats and dogs). Why use complicated learning algorithms when they're already implemented in brains?

Idle?

[Thinboy00]

Why is this in science? Shouldn't it be in idle?

Huh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Argumentum ad populum? On my Slashdot?

More likely than you'd think.

Got a walkthrough anyone?

[whatajoke]

The very first mission is a boss fight :(

Re:Got a walkthrough anyone?

[kaitos]

http://mergers.galaxyzoo.org/how_to_take_part

Red Dwarf planet pool

[skyriser2]

First thing that came to my mind, that planet pool scene from Red Dwarf:

Red Dwarf - Planet Pool:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBmgZv6YAxE

Promoting the game

[zmaragdus]

Colliding galaxies together? Watch out for celebrity endorsement by Mike Meyers: "Smashing Baby!"

Kind of neat

[codepigeon]

A lot of people are bashing this. I think its kind of neat. I will "play" for a while.

Galaxy Zoo

[Munden]

This has been around for two and a half years and they relaunched it as Galaxy Zoo 2 back in Feb. of this year. Wonder why the BBC is rehashing the story now...

Re:Galaxy Zoo

[WraithCube]

Not only that, but slashdot covered the release of galaxy zoo and covered it again when it found a rare specimen. I spent quite a bit of time going through pictures when it first launched, but the interest had died off before it changed to Galaxy Zoo 2. It seems to have improved quite a bit since the original, but I wouldn't have imagined adding extra pictures to every page is enough to get to the front page of slashdot. Especially since as you said that change was made back in February.

Re:Galaxy Zoo

[meglon]

And along the same lines, computer programs have been around for DECADES.. yet they still make news. Who'da thunk.

The GZ2 wasn't a relaunch in the typical sense, it was new and more precise information, with new goals. This galaxy merger tool is also new, and has yet another new goal.

Perhaps we could have gone with the idea back in the day that "Everything that can be invented has been invented," Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899.... yet, we didn't. New things are still making the news.

Re:Galaxy Zoo

[Anonymous Coward]

This has been around for two and a half years and they relaunched it as Galaxy Zoo 2 back in Feb. of this year. Wonder why the BBC is rehashing the story now...

It may have something to do with the Galaxy Merger feature, which happens to be right in the the Slashdot and BBC headlines. It only just came online, this isn't old news.

Credibility shot...

[scooter.higher]

Sorry, but British scientists already screwed up with their climate "research" so I'll wait for the next go 'round...

CAPTCHA

[sherakama]

A game. Pssht. I have better games to play. Now make it a type of CAPTCHA and you will have your data prompto.

Re-classify as volunteer work

[syousef]

I'm torn. On the one hand there are very very few opportunities for someone with basic education to help scientists, and especially astronomers do real work. On the other hand as a "game" this is about as boring as you can get. I think there are enough amateur astronomers who are willing to help , especially in bite sized chunks (just look at the amateur effort tracking variable stars!) so why not call it what it is - volunteer work - and drop the lame game interface?

Pre-empted car analogy?

[Psaakyrn]

I see what you did there...

Add it to loading screens in games

[Dideamon]

If they added this kind of stuff to loading / zoning screens in online games i'm sure people would use it to kill a few seconds

Meta

[headkase]

Slashdot is crowdsourcing. Welcome to the hivemind. Everything is fractal and you have your branch and I have mine.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

If I remember correctly, many years ago Sydney University (Australia) built up a PC with LINUX just to study what happens when Galaxies collide. They may have come a long way with their calculations by now.
Unfortunately I do not remember who was doing the work but I built that PC.

Re:Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, this information is very informative.

It's distributed intertube computing

[pinkushun]

They get the young ones interested in exploring the universe (I'd loved this 10 years ago!), a lil better than being productive on joecartoon. Those gerbils are too damn cute though...

FoldIt

[AniVisual]

Other groups have aleready made games out of protein folding puzzles.

Tagging as history

[Gaffod]

Wow, I remember this from when was in high school, learning about polynomials.

For perspective, I have anxieties about having too little time to prepare for the GRE nowadays. (Glances at source) Oh, of course. Does anybody know a site like slashdot, you know, news for nerds stuff, only the news are actually... Umm... new?

Re:Better than "Find the black hole around Uranus!

[CarpetShark]

Actually, your mom loves that game ;)