The future of SETI@home

Message boards : SETI@home Science : The future of SETI@home

Author	Message
Daedalus Send message Joined: 16 Aug 05 Posts: 1 Credit: 13,298 RAC: 0	Message 985205 - Posted: 30 Mar 2010, 2:03:13 UTC
	Hi. The Seti@home project has been running for ten years now and our negative result seems to point us only closer to proving that there's no technological alien civilisation recordable by our current level of technology. I'm wondering then, what are the plans for the future of this mighty project? Are we going to start looking for other things in the data we already have? Are near future computer advances going to revolutionise what we can look for? Are we going to start using more sensitive radio telescopes to gather the data? Any and all information welcome! krytie75 ____________
	ID: 985205 ·

Johnney Guinness Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 11 Sep 06 Posts: 2944 Credit: 2,305,966 RAC: 330	Message 985432 - Posted: 30 Mar 2010, 22:18:07 UTC - in response to Message 985205. Last modified: 30 Mar 2010, 22:19:03 UTC
	krytie, Would you believe that they are still combing the data they have for signals? New Science takes time, especially if you not quite sure what kind of signals your looking for. I believe, for the time being, they are just going to keep doing what they are doing. No major plans to change. John. ____________
	ID: 985432 ·

Rookie_69 Send message Joined: 29 May 03 Posts: 86 Credit: 2,379,728 RAC: 238	Message 985435 - Posted: 30 Mar 2010, 22:35:52 UTC
	The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence... Someone said that...
	ID: 985435 ·

kenzieB Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 16 Mar 07 Posts: 3916 Credit: 1,578,136 RAC: 674	Message 985438 - Posted: 30 Mar 2010, 22:45:24 UTC
	It should also be remembered that SAH has only looked at a small portion of the sky in the northern hemisphere and even that with not a lot of detail. It's like dipping a bucket into the ocean, looking in the bucket, not seeing any whales in there, and deducing that there are no whales in the ocean. ____________
	ID: 985438 ·

Norwich Gadfly Send message Joined: 29 Dec 08 Posts: 100 Credit: 488,414 RAC: 0	Message 985559 - Posted: 31 Mar 2010, 15:24:51 UTC - in response to Message 985438.
	I foresee that a standard SETI@Home receiver could be developed to fit any radio telescope in the world. These would collect send the data via the internet to Berkeley for chopping up into work units for the volunteers who by this time will be running PCs with probably 1024 cores. ____________
	ID: 985559 ·

skildude Send message Joined: 4 Oct 00 Posts: 8944 Credit: 36,800,227 RAC: 60,544	Message 987256 - Posted: 7 Apr 2010, 12:39:18 UTC - in response to Message 985559.
	yes but the only problem is getting the 50 Gb files to Berkeley ____________ Proud member of TSWB. End terrorism by building a school
	ID: 987256 ·

Chris S Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 19 Nov 00 Posts: 22820 Credit: 4,530,195 RAC: 5,642	Message 987356 - Posted: 7 Apr 2010, 21:16:58 UTC
	It's like dipping a bucket into the ocean, looking in the bucket, not seeing any whales in there, and deducing that there are no whales in the ocean. Well exactly. Then again if you had a big enough bucket you might just possibly find a whale in there. That is the problem isn't it? Seti cannot posibly sample the whole ocean nor the entire sky. Within the limitations necessarily imposed upon the project, we just have to hope that our particular bucket strikes lucky. ____________ Damsel Rescuer, Kitty Patron, Raccoon Friend, Uli Fan, Julie Supporter, ES99 Admirer, PETA Member, 1st Childhood
	ID: 987356 ·

Lawrence Coffin Send message Joined: 6 May 99 Posts: 2 Credit: 1,437,784 RAC: 0	Message 989626 - Posted: 16 Apr 2010, 19:02:38 UTC
	Does anyone have a measure of just how much seti@home has covered? I.e. in the last ten years, has SAH analyzed 10% of the recorded signals? 90%? How much of the analyzed data been ... ummm... re-analyzed to find the signals that matter (in reference to Johnney's "still combing the data they have for signals")? How much of the sky has SAH covered? How much of the spectrum? We keep seeing people ask "it's been ten years. why no results?" And responses of "it's only a small dip in the ocean". It might be nice to put numbers around just how much has been done, what SAH's goals are, what the possibilities are, etc. I.e. something like: seti@home progress: 10% of the sky recorded 20% of recorded data analyzed by SAH users 40% of identified signals investigated Therefore, we're only 0.8% of the way to seti@home's goals of 100% sky, 100% analyzed and investigated. seti@home is only looking at signals at X wavelength(s), which is only Y% of the spectrum... therefore seti@home has only covered 0.8Y% of the possible space an ETI may be communicating in. I know it may be a bit more complicated than that... that SAH is perhaps looking at the best* part of the spectrum, some recording areas of the sky more than once, etc.... but anything close to the above might be better than simply saying "it's a big ocean, and our bucket isn't very big". Anything like this exist?
	ID: 989626 ·

Dr. C.E.T.I. Send message Joined: 29 Feb 00 Posts: 15969 Credit: 625,669 RAC: 239	Message 990086 - Posted: 18 Apr 2010, 11:06:56 UTC
	. . . i believe that we each [Originally @ the start of ths Project] had 'no expectations regarding whether we'd ever see any results OR 'contact' . . . . . . we all felt that 'possibly' Our Children's Children Children might hear something - though we still do NOT have any expectations regarding . . . we continue to crunch away - with 'no expectations' . . . Respectfully Submitted: with regards from joanne & i crUnCh_on . . . ____________ BOINC Wiki . . . Science Status Page . . .
	ID: 990086 ·

Johnney Guinness Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 11 Sep 06 Posts: 2944 Credit: 2,305,966 RAC: 330	Message 990509 - Posted: 19 Apr 2010, 19:24:48 UTC - in response to Message 989626.
	Does anyone have a measure of just how much seti@home has covered? I.e. in the last ten years, has SAH analyzed 10% of the recorded signals? 90%? How much of the analysed data been ... ummm... re-analysed to find the signals that matter (in reference to Johnny's "still combing the data they have for signals")? How much of the sky has SAH covered? How much of the spectrum? We keep seeing people ask "it's been ten years. why no results?" And responses of "it's only a small dip in the ocean". It might be nice to put numbers around just how much has been done, what Saw's goals are, what the possibilities are, etc. I.e. something like: seti@home progress: 10% of the sky recorded 20% of recorded data analysed by SAH users 40% of identified signals investigated Therefore, we're only 0.8% of the way to seti@home's goals of 100% sky, 100% analysed and investigated. seti@home is only looking at signals at X wavelength(s), which is only Y% of the spectrum... therefore seti@home has only covered 0.8Y% of the possible space an ETTI may be communicating in. I know it may be a bit more complicated than that... that SAH is perhaps looking at the best* part of the spectrum, some recording areas of the sky more than once, etc.... but anything close to the above might be better than simply saying "it's a big ocean, and our bucket isn't very big". Anything like this exist? Lawrence, Your dead right! This project should have clear info like that available, but it does not! I suspect it is because the figures would be embarrassingly small. I suspect that in the first 3 years of this project, the scientists hoped that some very obvious signal would jump out of the data, but this never happened. I suspect that this project has effectively been stagnant ever since due to lack of funding to advance the science and the search further. For the time being, the very small crew who work for this project try their best with the very limited funds they have. Maybe someday, someone like NASA might see the logic in this project and inject some funding to kick the project back to life. For the moment, they try their best. John. ____________
	ID: 990509 ·

Josef W. Segur Volunteer developer Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 30 Oct 99 Posts: 3932 Credit: 934,327 RAC: 15	Message 990639 - Posted: 20 Apr 2010, 10:39:01 UTC
	Arecibo can see about 31% of the sky. The usual cylindrical projection makes it look less, but bear in mind the top and bottom of those maps are severely stretched. From http://seticlassic.ssl.berkeley.edu/process_page/ there are these numbers: Current Progress Summary Last updated: Fri Jan 13 14:48:32 2006 UTC % of visible sky covered 0 times: 3.2% 1 time: 11.1% 2 times: 19.0% 3 or more times: 66.7% Almost all of the recorded data has been analyzed by S@H Enhanced, a smaller fraction by Astropulse. Joe
	ID: 990639 ·

Jeff Hammer Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 2 Mar 02 Posts: 198 Credit: 625,172 RAC: 0	Message 990980 - Posted: 22 Apr 2010, 1:46:26 UTC - in response to Message 990639.
	THAT'S the kind of page I think we'd all love to see. Hopefully the NTPCKR is up and running soon, along with some interesting feedback such as what USED to exist back in 2006! ____________
	ID: 990980 ·

Message boards : SETI@home Science : The future of SETI@home