I was just reading: "As of November 2011, the Einstein@Home project has discovered a total of 14 pulsars. Ten from Parkes Multibeam Survey data and four from Arecibo radio data."

What about Astropulse? It basically does the same pulsar search.

Why are "we" not detecting anything?

I little bit more information from the Seti team would be nice.

If I may follow up on Frizz's posting here and ask the following:

Many of the Seti@home tasks return gaussian scores from the processing of these same tasks.

Are such gaussian scores just an indication of possible intelligence (if any)?

Could such a returned number at times indicate possible communication, meaning a transmission or message of sorts?

Please expain this to me.

Quoting from http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/donor_letter_oct11.php:

We've also re-observed seventy two of the 102 sources of unidentified radio pulses found with our Astropulse search. We hope to observe the remaining sources soon. While it's likely that these pulses are a natural phenomenon, we don't yet know what we will find.

The last P2589 reinvestigation observations showing on the Arecibo schedules were on 22 July, so it seems the remaining 30 will be done some time next year.

I'm also curious, of course, but until the re-observations are complete and any findings peer reviewed I don't expect any public statements.

                                                                   Joe

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

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/sah_glossary/gaussians.php

"A lower "fit" value means a better fit."

---

 


- ALF - "Find out what you don't do well ..... then don't do it!" :)
 

> "A lower "fit" value means a better fit."

Are you sure about right this?

In my opinion, a task tries to return not only the highest gaussian score, but also the best combination (highest value) for both power and fit (chi square) as well. It is the combination of these three values which constitutes the gaussian as a whole.

A gaussian with a low fit has a curves (slopes and valleys) up and down several times. If regarded as being a signal, it may be seen as being more unpacked or dispersed in nature.

A gaussian with a high fit typically has a steep curve in it sometimes going straight up. Typically the "peak" column in the gaussian table in SMV has a higher value for a gaussian with a high fit than another gaussian with a low fit. Assumedly the signal strength could be stronger in a gaussian with a high fit than a low fit.

Or am I wrong on this point?

I'm also curious, of course, but until the re-observations are complete and any findings peer reviewed I don't expect any public statements.

It always surprises me how much time, money & electricity the participants here are willing to spend on S@H - for so little, let's call it, "public relations".

I'm also curious, of course, but until the re-observations are complete and any findings peer reviewed I don't expect any public statements.

It always surprises me how much time, money & electricity the participants here are willing to spend on S@H - for so little, let's call it, "public relations".

How much PR do you expect from four part time staff?

How much PR do you expect from four part time staff?

Enough to convince me to keep on crunching.

I am surprised that there are not more people here asking (themselves?) the same question.

imho S@H is too much of a black box.

How much PR do you expect from four part time staff?

Enough to convince me to keep on crunching.

I am surprised that there are not more people here asking (themselves?) the same question.

imho S@H is too much of a black box.

As they've said--they can either take the time to answer a lot of posts--or they can focus on keeping things up and running. Too little manpower to do both evenly so the documented info takes a back seat.

---

How much PR do you expect from four part time staff?

Enough to convince me to keep on crunching.

What convinced you to crunch for S@H in the first place?
Does that reason no longer exist?

I am surprised that there are not more people here asking (themselves?) the same question.

Why? I always figure people know why they're doing something.

imho S@H is too much of a black box.

Opinions vary.

I'm also curious, of course, but until the re-observations are complete and any findings peer reviewed I don't expect any public statements.

It always surprises me how much time, money & electricity the participants here are willing to spend on S@H - for so little, let's call it, "public relations".

How much PR do you expect from four part time staff?

Maybe a resume every year that says:
"We have not found anything yet"

Or perhaps it can be explained this way:

When it comes to dedication and hard work by the staff - no problem with me, they are doing a great job.

These web-pages are magic stuff when you know them well.

But what about the results? Do we get what we want?

Should I make a guess about the possible numbers in question?

Please compare the following web-pages:

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_forum.php?id=830 (Titled 'Message boards : Near Time Persistency Checker').

with http://seticlassic.ssl.berkeley.edu/candidates.html (listed under 'Science' on the main page there, http://www.seticlassic.ssl.berkeley.edu).

Titled 'Signal Candidate Page'.

Especially the web-link http://seticlassic.ssl.berkeley.edu/Candidates/index.html,

Comprehensive list of promising Gaussian candidates -
http://seticlassic.ssl.berkeley.edu/Candidates/index.html

I guess these pages do not contain the same information all the way.

Perhaps these pages could be merged or combined? Not impossibly, a couple of new things may have been detected since the (still important) postings on the Classic web-pages.

Comprehensive list of promising Gaussian candidates -
http://seticlassic.ssl.berkeley.edu/Candidates/index.html

It says "Last Updated November 6, 2002".

That's what I mean with: "a little bit more public relations would be nice".

Well for me as long as they send work, I will crunch it. No matter what the pitfalls and outages or the lack of communications I will still crunch. The day they pull the plug I will not crunch,And that will be a sad day.

---

[/quote]

Old James

I figure I will just crunch until the Men In Black show up on my doorstep to take me and my computer away. That is how I will probably be informed I found something.

---

PROUD MEMBER OF Team Starfire World BOINC

I figure I will just crunch until the Men In Black show up on my doorstep to take me and my computer away. That is how I will probably be informed I found something.

yep, for the topic starter : if you are not satisfied with the project, no one is forcing you to crunch. That's what "volunteer project" means.

Bottomline is : everybody crunching Seti is convinced that E.T. excists and whether or not "we" find it, the main goal is that (hopefully in my lifetime) proof of intelligent life somewhere else in the universe comes forward...

If you can't live with the outages, lack of WU's or info just quit or move on to another project.

I personally believe the guys at Berkeley are doing a great job with the resources they have !

---

I figure I will just crunch until the Men In Black show up on my doorstep to take me and my computer away. That is how I will probably be informed I found something.

Yeah, that's my take on it too. Nobody is going to fool me into believing that if something is found, it will be publically known, or even told to the person who found something. The only way it will be in some way known, is that all of a sudden the SETI lab will be shut down (probably the excuse will say for financial reasons, no more funds available), all stuff carried away, and the poor soul out there somewhere on the planet, who own the computer that found something, will as you point out be taken away by the Men In Black (or some other colour) with his computer, to some hitherto unknown location (or simply to Area 51).

So true : that's life...

---

I was just reading: "As of November 2011, the Einstein@Home project has discovered a total of 14 pulsars. Ten from Parkes Multibeam Survey data and four from Arecibo radio data."

What about Astropulse? It basically does the same pulsar search.

Why are "we" not detecting anything?

I little bit more information from the Seti team would be nice.

Just one discovery will be incredible. If that discovery is not suppressed it will have profound changes on this troubled tiny world. I Spent a good deal of money on this i7 2600k and motherboard so I can continuously run SETI@Home in the background at all times. I do my part to help find any extraterrestrial radio sources. Along with the cost of the energy used, this is my monetary donation.

There is an extremely small window of opportunity compared to the age of our little galaxy where we should be able to observe something here. The odds of finding a signal in our very tiny lifetime are astronomical. We haven't even come close to observing the entire sky, yet, either. The sky is vast, and the potential signal is coming from essentially a point source. It would be just a tiny spec in the sky. Plus, our radio capabilities must coincide with the arrival of their signals. This is why nothing definitive has been detected, yet.

However, even if .01% of the few hundred billion stars in the galaxy had a planet that could have supported intelligent life in the galaxy's lifetime, that still leaves millions of life-supporting planets. Each of those planets could have even supported multiple civilizations over the history of each planet. The odds aren't all that bad of us possibly getting a weak signal from a civilization that existed hundreds, if not thousands of years ago. That is, if the signal is strong enough for us to distinguish from background radiation.

The government is already putting one step forward to finding out if there is other life with the NASA mission Kepler. Finding planets that could theoretically support life is the first step. Even if SETI does not find something, Kepler probably will. The odds are in support of finding a planet of similar size and mass of Earth in the habitable zone of a star.

Just one discovery will be incredible. If that discovery is not suppressed it will have profound changes on this troubled tiny world.

I predict that it will lead to a global world war between the religious fanatics that refuse to believe there could be any life in the universe except those "made in his image" and the rest of the intelligent life on this planet, and it will result in wiping out all life on this planet.

I hope I get my toaster before then.

---

well, they adapted somehow to the view that Earth is not center of Universe and other quite heretic thoughts... few (quite a few) peoples were killed though indeed... Maybe some preventive kick to eradicate fanatics? ;) And more preferences to Laws of Nature instead of law of God ?...

[EDIT: it's offtopic of course, just can't resist to touch this ill theme... here (in my country) we see some regress on this direction... :( ]