I am 36 year old doctor and I first heard of SETI from New Scientist. I used my work computer (an old 486 DX33 - hence the lousy 21 hrs per unit) and completed a humble 85 units after about 6 months.
Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home
Why I run SETI
1. use otherwise wasted CPU time
2. a (very) small chance of finding intelligent life
3. promote a novel (well it used to be) method of supercomputing on the cheap
My views on SETI
1. a blue sky project, innovative, joins diverse communities together
2. puts our self-importance as "humans" into perspective
SETI@home and Astropulse are funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and donations from SETI@home volunteers. AstroPulse is funded in part by the NSF through grant AST-0307956.
