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http://online.wsj.com/public/art ... 0628.html?mod=blogs
How Many Computers Does It Take to Make Contact with E.T.s?
June 28, 2006; Page B1
Maybe the easiest thing would be to blame the Germans.
Without their dedication to science, Chris Benoit would never have started Seti.USA. And absent that, one of the computer world's least-known but most powerful monopolies might not still exist. Yes, it's true that even without the Seti@Home crowd bigfooting the world of distributed computing, we probably still would have incurable diseases and dangerous climate change. But we'd be a lot closer to solutions than we are now, don't you think?
We should back up in our story a bit.
In the late 1990s, David P. Anderson, a University of California, Berkeley, computer scientist, realized that with the global Internet connecting millions of often-idle computers, the time had come for "distributed computing." This takes one big scientific computer problem and breaks it into little pieces, to be farmed out to many machines.
After Dr. Anderson wrote his software, he needed a problem for the machines to tackle. He chose SETI, the "search for extra-terrestrial intelligence." His Seti@Home would pore through the data from the Arecibo radio telescope looking for blips that might indicate intelligent life.
To make things interesting, there was added a scoring system, which awarded points to users for the computer time they donated, and allowed them to compete to see who could rack up the most. The credits are good only for bragging rights but would become a potent motivator. In fact, with finding E.T. such a long shot, the competition for points quickly became a main reason for taking part.
Dr. Anderson's real interest was distributed computing; the extraterrestrial angle was something of an attention-getting gimmick. But it was a spectacular success. Nearly a million downloaded the software that enabled their computers to analyze the Arecibo data. And it worked brilliantly.
And so other researchers -- biologists looking into proteins implicated in Alzheimer's, say, or physicists exploring fine points in relativity -- all began lining up at Dr. Anderson's Web site, boinc.berkeley.edu, seeking help for their own projects.
There was a problem, though: Seti@Homers didn't want to switch their allegiance. Hundreds of thousands keep running the SETI software -- far more than any other distributed-computing project. What was supposed to be a test case became a powerful entrenched interest. Today, Seti@Home is to distributed computing what AARP is to social-security reform.
A big reason for the inertia turned out to be the points, which users had spent years accumulating. As with frequent-flier miles, they didn't want to lose them by switching.
This is where the Germans come in. Early on, they had formed a team, Seti.Germany, which dominated the results, even though more Americans participated. That rankled Chris Benoit, a Chicago health-care worker. "Hey, we're America, and we've always accomplished great things," he recalls thinking.
Thus was born Seti.USA, which quickly began outpacing the Germans. But a consequence is that now, with national rivalries mixed in, there was even less chance of anyone doing anything besides Seti@Home.
Seti.USA members take this competition very seriously, so much so that they will buy more computers in search of points. Daniel T. Schaalma, of Fond du Lac, Wis., a former machinist, has 23 in his house, mostly scattered across banquet tables in his basement. "I've probably spent in excess of $20,000 on them over the years," he says. "It's basically a hobby for me. Yeah, it's expensive, but golf can get pretty expensive, too."
Team.USA members say it's all friendly competition and good, clean, scientific fun -- Mr. Benoit was even once named "Member of the Month" of the German team.
Maybe, but there have been wars started over soccer.
This continued fascination with living-room SETI comes as professional setiologists concede that early assumptions about the search for intelligent life -- notably those popularized by astronomer Carl Sagan -- have proven naively optimistic.
For instance, it's now conceded there is little chance of detecting the "leaking" transmissions of another planet -- its version of "I Love Lucy" broadcasts. Those signals are too weak to stand out from the universe's background noise.
Dr. Anderson says he himself doesn't run Seti any more. Instead, he donates his spare computer power to a global warming project. But he doesn't presume to tell others what they ought to be doing with their CPU cycles.
Scientists, including those who would benefit from the freed-up computers, are similarly tolerant. "It's hard for me to criticize their choice," said one.
This columnist, though, knows no such compulsion. I asked Mr. Benoit: With polar ice caps melting, doesn't someone who continues to use their computer for manifestly less timely problems surely have water on their hands?
He replied, "You're really putting me in a corner, aren't you?" |
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