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SETI@home Science :
Is this process routinely tested end-to-end?
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WPrion Send message Joined: 10 Apr 13 Posts: 16 Credit: 796,282 RAC: 0 |
I didn't find any results when I searched the forums for this question, so here goes: Has anyone ever taken an actual task/workunit (or a set of same if necessary) and altered them to insert an "alien intelligent signal" of some sort, then let these tasks propagate through the seti@home system and see if a computer or computers somewhere actually detects and reports it? What to use for the faux "alien intelligent signal" would be an interesting challenge in itself. What would you use - some digitized Morse Code or the fancy alternating frame carrier/harmonic TV signal described in Contact? I'm just really curious of the efficacy of this monumental, unending task and how it is tested. Thanks, Win |
rob smith Send message Joined: 7 Mar 03 Posts: 22199 Credit: 416,307,556 RAC: 380 |
The part of the process we are involved in has been "thrashed to death" over a good few years, and many millions of user-hours. But, we are only doing the first stage of the screening, getting rid of the 99.999% of dross to leave the 0.001% of signals worthy of further investigation. It is only recently that the next stage of the process started to be developed with the advent of the "Nebula" project, this does a mammoth correlation job on our output to further reduce the pile to something more manageable (the theory of what to do has been around for a good few years, but nobody had the time or funding to do it) It is highly unlikely that we ever get to the point of being able to decode a signal into something meaningful as the degradation is so massive due to the vast distances and times involved. Bob Smith Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society) Somewhere in the (un)known Universe? |
Gary Charpentier Send message Joined: 25 Dec 00 Posts: 30648 Credit: 53,134,872 RAC: 32 |
Read the Nebula threads. Yes they inject fake signals for testing. |
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