What is it?

SETI@home is a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). You can participate by running a free program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data.

Are we really the only life in the universe? SETI is an attempt to find out if there is anyone else out there.

Like many other collaboration projects on the Internet, SETI is a group of people motivated by a desire to share and learn. It is not a money-making exercise. The software works on all kinds of computers - Windows, Linux, Macs and other kinds of Unix systems.

A screen shot from the motion picture, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
Is it more likely that they will come to us, or that we will locate them via SETI?

How does it work?

As personal computers have become widespread and more powerful, many people have computers at home that are mostly just idling. They are very powerful, but few home users ever tap the full capabilities of their computers unless they are doing intensive tasks like video editting or playing very complex games. Most of the time these computers are sitting idle. Enter SETI - someone had the bright idea to attempt to harness the power of these idle computers and give them something useful to do.

When you run SETI@home on your computer, it uses part of the computer's CPU power, disk space, and network bandwidth. You can control how much of your resources are used by SETI@home, and when it uses them.

If you install the SETI program on your computer, it automatically downloads data from the main SETI site. This data is direct from radio telescopes and your computer is put to work analyzing this for anomalies or patterns that may indicate the presence of other intelligent life forms.

At last count there were over 3 million participants across the world.

Check out the main SETI site here: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/

Communities of all kinds

Of course, like all human endeavours, there are lots of associated effects. People are not just content to give access to their computers, they have formed various communities online. And of course there are competitions and rankings - who has the fastest computer and such like.
Seti is about people ... here is a screen grab from the SETI site:

Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing

A variety of other projects have arisen from the original SETI - not just to do with the search for other life forms, but related to a variety of science projects, all using this shared resource of computers. These are co-ordinated via the BOIC web site:

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/projects.php

This is a very interesting aspect of the Internet. People from all over the world are happily sharing their computers and networks to contribute to a variety of useful tasks.

Which of the global communities on the BOINC site appeals to you most? Why?

Have you ever considered becoming involved in one of the tasks?
Have a look at the BOINC site.

Maybe you would like to download the software and become part of the woldwide team.