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What is SETI?

W

WildKat

Junior Member
I let my son put Seti on my computer. He says I should leave it on all the time. I know he knows alot about computers, but won't this hurt it?
What is Seti? He says he is looking for aliens. How can you find them with a computer? It is computing telescope data? Doesn't NASA have computers to do that?
Also, what is this about a race? He says he needs my computer to help him win a race....What do you get if you win?

My son sent me a link to this site, and said it was OK to ask these questions here.
Thanks for your help.
 
Welcome Wildcat,

Try this link Seti @ Home

You will find all your answers there. (well, almost all) 🙂

Come back after you have looked around. We'd love to have you join us in the quest. 🙂
 
WildKat: SETI (Search for ET Intelligence). So yes, searching for aliens if you want to look at it that way. In basic terms, there's a huge radio telescope pointing at different positions in the sky just listening and recording what it hears. This data is recorded to tapes and broken into 350KB chunks called Work Units. These are what the SETI client downloads and analyzes. After the client has finished analyzing the data it is sent back to the University of Berkeley in California. All the client does is help the SETI project with idle CPU power. NASA has nothing to do with this project. It is funded by the school and donations only. No government cash as far as I know.

Will it hurt your computer? Nope. SETI only takes idle CPU cycles. If you're playing a game or using another program SETI isn't going to interfere with it. As long as your computer isn't overclocked too high then your computer can run SETI@Home 24/7/365 with no harm whatsoever. Believe me, I've got 50+ clients doing exactly that. 🙂

The reason he called it a race is he's probably on a team and/or in a competition against another SETI@Home user. I hope he's on Team Anandtech! 🙂

Ask away if you've got any more questions!

Welcome to the DC forums too! 🙂

Rob
 
Make sure you turn the monitor off when you aren't using the computer for an extended period of time to save energy. As long as you have decent cooling, it shouldn't hurt your computer to have it on 24/7.

The SETI client analyzes radio data packets looking for strange signals and patterns. NASA has nothing remotely close to the power of the SETI@home project. 🙂

Is your son on Team AnandTech? It sounds like he is..what's his SETI name and forum name?

BTW, welcome to the forums! 😀
 
Wildkat
Welcome to our forum🙂
I'll just answer a few quick questions here😉

He says I should leave it on all the time. I know he knows alot about computers, but won't this hurt it?
No ,not really because the system is not being powered up & down all the time the 'stress' from booting up is gone ,eg spinning up HDD's ,the intial start loading on the PSU to name a few.
Processor wise ,Intel for example give the life span of a PIII as 7yrs ,will you still have it then? ,if so then you could have a problem (7ish yrs from now).

He says he is looking for aliens. How can you find them with a computer?
SETI downloads a chunk of radio data(350k) from the SETI servers ,this is then searched though for 'The' signal🙂


Doesn't NASA have computers to do that?
err yes ,but they aren't powerful enough to get through all the data in a reasonable time.SETI@Home project entered the Guiness book of records as the worlds largest super computor via Distributed Computing🙂

Also, what is this about a race? He says he needs my computer to help him win a race....What do you get if you win?

The race is just for fun ,but it also helps motivation & thus increases team output 🙂........... what do you win? ,glory & honour amongst Team Anandtech😉 heh

[edit]Dang Robor & Sukhoi sneaked in whilst I was typing!😛😉
 
You know if each of us took our time and worked up an introduction to SETI in our own words and then saved it to a text/Word file, we'd be ready and able to respond at the flick of an eye when the occassion arises. We could dress it up, check the spelling, and give it a nice format.

Just a thought. 🙂

I'll start working on mine right now. 😀
 
Hi, Dad...nice pic😉 It doesn't look a bit like you 😀

Like I said, leaving the computer on only hurts the electric bill, and turning the monitor off helps that.

Thanks guys, for giving my dad a warm welcome. He brings a CeleronII @ 800 to bolster my effort and has benn turning in 9hr WUs for me🙂

 
smokeball - i did the exact same thing when i was sitting over at the intel newsgroups discussing pentium 2s, pros, and mmxs. had a big text file explaining the differences and why things came out. NNTP... good stuff.
 
SpookyFish, tell WildKat to drop by and visit...there are guys in here around his age and older...like me. 🙂
 
Sukhoi Thanks 🙂

curt way

smokeball I'll let him know. Maybe he will get his own fleet going. He's the one who got me going on sci-fi some 20+ years ago, so there has to be some interest there 😉
 
WildKat, the race your son is speaking of is with me and another person, so what that means is, is that you can't help him. HAHA!!, just kidding 🙂 It's just a little friendly competition between memberswho are close to acheiving the same milestones. In the end everyone benefits as it challenges us to do the best we can in outputting results and helps the overall team effort.
 
Thanks for all the nice replies. This is a nice BBS, and very active. I don't think I'll join the race, but you guys have fun.
 
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