First, don't get me wrong, I'm all for the project - I just didn't know how else to put the question :P

What I'm wondering is, does the project produce any useful data as a by-product?

In other words, does SETI@home further our knowledge of what's out there in any way other than what it's express aim is to provide? Or is each negative result a useless chunk of data?

First, don't get me wrong, I'm all for the project - I just didn't know how else to put the question :P

What I'm wondering is, does the project produce any useful data as a by-product?

...

It does not as far as I know.

It's one of the best ways I know where you can burn computer parts
then replace them with new bits.
If you asked your wife if it was ok to buy a new graphics card/ motherboard/
etc she would probably say no.
If you tell her it has burnt out ,no problem buy a new one!
Therefore SETI is a godsend never mind useful.

john3760

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First, don't get me wrong, I'm all for the project - I just didn't know how else to put the question :P

What I'm wondering is, does the project produce any useful data as a by-product?

In other words, does SETI@home further our knowledge of what's out there in any way other than what it's express aim is to provide? Or is each negative result a useless chunk of data?

As a long time participant & volunteer developer, I've considered these questions often.

A lot comes down to what you consider to be 'important', which has some subjective & objective content.

Any scientific endeavour contributes to a larger body of knowledge and skills in unexpected ways. IOW: there is no such thing as a failed experiment, you learn by doing.

You could certainly call Hero of Alexandria(Heron's) steam toys as a waste of time, but where did those things lead ? Would his contemporaries have realised the significance of the work ?

Anecdotally, from my own perspective, while discovery & confirmation of extraterrestrial signals is a key goal, it certainly isn't the only satisfactory result of efforts, and what I see includes:
- Adding to distributed computing technology, now acheiving widespread use for all kinds of potentially beneficial research in very diverse fields
- adding to methodological experience, next time we want to do something in a wide range of disciplines from astronomy & engineering , we have improved skills over time
- contribution to Numerical & scientific computing methods. There are certainly wide applications for signal processing & other computer science aspects participants can potentially be exposed to here, if they choose to seek them out.
- Optimisation: doesn't simply always mean faster, but often faster cheaper (more efficient) and better, which is another whole multidisciplinary science unto itself.

Some of those could be debatable, or vary in degrees, and there would be more I haven't though of off the top of my head, but all seem like valuable contributions to me, even if the universe turns out to be an empty place.

Regards, Jason

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"Living by the wisdom of computer science doesn't sound so bad after all. And unlike most advice, it's backed up by proofs." -- Algorithms to live by: The computer science of human decisions.

It's one of the best ways I know where you can burn computer parts
then replace them with new bits.
If you asked your wife if it was ok to buy a new graphics card/ motherboard/
etc she would probably say no.
If you tell her it has burnt out ,no problem buy a new one!
Therefore SETI is a godsend never mind useful.

john3760

I've been running the Seti@home software since 1999 and as far as I know it has never contributed to the burnout of any computer components in my computers. As I have upgraded computers over the years the speed at which my computer completes a block of data analysis has increased so in a way it has served as a benchmark of how much faster each successive computer has been.

---

Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Anecdotally, from my own perspective, while discovery & confirmation of extraterrestrial signals is a key goal, it certainly isn't the only satisfactory result of efforts, and what I see includes:
- Adding to distributed computing technology, now acheiving widespread use for all kinds of potentially beneficial research in very diverse fields
- adding to methodological experience, next time we want to do something in a wide range of disciplines from astronomy & engineering , we have improved skills over time
- contribution to Numerical & scientific computing methods. There are certainly wide applications for signal processing & other computer science aspects participants can potentially be exposed to here, if they choose to seek them out.
- Optimisation: doesn't simply always mean faster, but often faster cheaper (more efficient) and better, which is another whole multidisciplinary science unto itself.

I like it!

An unfortunate fact of SETI though, in my eyes, is that it doesn't provide definite or even substantial evidence in the negative (I could be wrong). We can't say for sure that because we didn't pick up any interesting signals during the few minutes we listened to a certain star system, there isn't anyone broadcasting there. We can just say that for that few minutes, no one was broadcasting. So the evidence in the negative for each case is much weaker and less useful than it would be in other projects like Einstein@home.

Then again, I know next to nothing about the method of operation of SETI, so I'm not really qualified to talk about this :P

It is true that Einstein@home has not found its main target, gravitational waves. But the methods employed to find them have been applied to other objects, both radio pulsars and gamma-ray pulsars and they were found in the data coming from Arecibo and Parkes radiotelescopes. Nine gamma-ray pulsars were found by the Atlas cluster in Hannover at the Albert Einstein Institute and the same code is now running at Einstein@home.Serendipity, you may call it, and Serendip is also the name of a SETI project. Matt is still working on it.
Tullio

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A negative result is not negative as such. You learn something; that what you're looking for is not there and that you will have to look in another place/way.

It is highly unlikely that we will find anything. There's so many assumptions made: That ET uses radio communication. That ET uses the frequencies we are monitoring. That ET wants to be found. That ET will continously broadcast in our direction for years and years. Etc.

But all searches have to start somewhere. When telescopes and computer power gets better and better we will be able to cover more ground. Any new search will build on the science done here.

Do I think we will find ET? Not really. Why do I keep looking? Because if we do find something it would completely change how we look at the world.

Perhaps one day someone will invent a new communication technology, and the first thing they will hear when they turn their device on is the weather forecast for Alpha Centauri.

...An unfortunate fact of SETI though, in my eyes, is that it doesn't provide definite or even substantial evidence in the negative (I could be wrong). We can't say for sure that because we didn't pick up any interesting signals during the few minutes we listened to a certain star system, there isn't anyone broadcasting there. We can just say that for that few minutes, no one was broadcasting...

I think I would be very sceptical of any science paper that claimed the non-existence of something, especially where we have one known example.

In the context of extraterrestrial life, and intelligent forms in particular, while I'd doubt we turn out to be so special, us being so rare & improbable so as to be remarkable & alone I can grasp well enough that there is justification for archeological exploration to find 'our place'.

Even if in looking for dinosaur fossils in your backyard, some would argue a complete waste of time, you only found better & better ways of looking through dirt year by year, and only find annoying precious metals & gemstones with all that wasted effort & technological development, You of course might not have been able to prove that dinosaurs didn't exist by sifting dirt in your back yard, but you might make some interesting discoveries along the way, and learn & develop tools to use should someone following you decide to look for something else.

Maybe the data will oneday reveal the presence of something just as, or more, interesting in your back yard ... but you never looked ?

Jason

---

"Living by the wisdom of computer science doesn't sound so bad after all. And unlike most advice, it's backed up by proofs." -- Algorithms to live by: The computer science of human decisions.

Anecdotally, from my own perspective, while discovery & confirmation of extraterrestrial signals is a key goal, it certainly isn't the only satisfactory result of efforts, and what I see includes:
- Adding to distributed computing technology, now acheiving widespread use for all kinds of potentially beneficial research in very diverse fields
- adding to methodological experience, next time we want to do something in a wide range of disciplines from astronomy & engineering , we have improved skills over time
- contribution to Numerical & scientific computing methods. There are certainly wide applications for signal processing & other computer science aspects participants can potentially be exposed to here, if they choose to seek them out.
- Optimisation: doesn't simply always mean faster, but often faster cheaper (more efficient) and better, which is another whole multidisciplinary science unto itself.

I like it!

An unfortunate fact of SETI though, in my eyes, is that it doesn't provide definite or even substantial evidence in the negative (I could be wrong). We can't say for sure that because we didn't pick up any interesting signals during the few minutes we listened to a certain star system, there isn't anyone broadcasting there. We can just say that for that few minutes, no one was broadcasting. So the evidence in the negative for each case is much weaker and less useful than it would be in other projects like Einstein@home.

Then again, I know next to nothing about the method of operation of SETI, so I'm not really qualified to talk about this :P

Now that the new server, GeorgeM, is now online doing the duty of Near Time Persistency Checker (aka. NTPCKR or Nitpicker, as some others of us like to call it), and as it goes through all the returned results from over the years you can never tell when a discovery might be found by it.

Cheers.

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My last post on this thread was obviously a bit tongue in cheek.
SETI@HOME is useful because there are only one or two projects
like this,actively looking for some sign of E.T. intelligence .
The data the project has collected till now may at this moment in
time have produced no proof of intelligent life close by or anywhere
else in the universe,but at least the data is being saved and in the future
with computers infinitely faster than the ones we have at present,it may be possible
to re-examine the data we have ,and (who knows) with different algorithms
or a better understanding of what to look for in the future,something. might be
discovered within the data we have actually collected already.
It is possible we have the signal already but not the knowledge to
detect or decipher it .
If SETI wasn't collecting the data now,future generations would have to start
from scratch,therefore missing out on decades of radio data.

john3760

edit. I've just noticed my rac, I didn't realise I had been away so long.
back in a few days(primegrid silvers will have to wait)

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but at least the data is being saved and in the future
with computers infinitely faster than the ones we have at present,it may be possible to re-examine the data we have ,and (who knows) with different algorithms
or a better understanding of what to look for in the future,something. might be
discovered within the data we have actually collected already.
It is possible we have the signal already but not the knowledge to
detect or decipher it .
If SETI wasn't collecting the data now,future generations would have to start
from scratch,therefore missing out on decades of radio data.

john3760

the 367kb WUs arent saved at all and are destroyed as soon they are assimilated.
only the results are kept.
can someone confirm or un-confirm this ?

The raw data is kept. The results are kept. The intermediate calculations are tossed.

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watch these vids, it might answer your question :)

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/sah_10yr_anniversary.php

If I didn't do this I'd be so bored I'd actually sit down and watch *GULP* reality TV

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

And it's the raw data that could possibly be re-examined in the future.


john3760

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If I didn't do this I'd be so bored I'd actually sit down and watch *GULP* reality TV

ROFL. There's good non-reality tv back on the air. Has been for several years now. However I too keep my face buried deeply in my computers. :-)

-Dave

especially ruth buzzy

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope