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Behind SETI: Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence

Submitted By
Words 1099
Pages 5
Di Xiao
Instructor Carruthers
ELIC 300.303
November 4, 2014
The Powerful “Supercomputer” Behind SETI
SETI(Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) is a program supervised by the SETI Institute, in search for extraterrestrial “technological civilizations” (SETI Institute). By observing the sky with radio telescopes and listening to “narrow-band” radio emissions, scientists could tell the evidence of ET. The research only restricts to signals of a certain range of radio frequency because compared to static from stars which spreads, signals concentrated to a certain frequency could be a sign of intelligence artifact. The program collects data both from Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, and the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) located in California. …show more content…
For the past twenty years, speed of hardwares have increased dramatically. For example, the most powerful supercomputer till now in the world, Tianhe-2 in China, topped the Top 10 supercomputers with a speed of 33.86 PFLOPS; And Titan in Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the fastest in the U.S., speed about half of that (Davey Alba). These are indeed considerable huge numbers and notable success. They are correct, but they fail to look at the big picture. Nowadays, the amount of data collected grows faster than hardware does. To pick out the weakest signals from massive of data collected, SETI needs a supercomputer monster, which they can never afford to build one (Ron Hipschman). To rent a supercomputer is not practical neither, because rate still exceeds their budget and amounts of tasks are going to share one supercomputer, making it hard to calculate in real …show more content…
And “screensaver scientists” give strong support. Statistic from BOINC website shows 230,904 active volunteers together with 411,396 computers, and computing power of 7.817 PFLOPS. An online poll conducted by Anderson indicated that 92% of contributors are motivated by “their own interest of underlying science”: “intelligent life exists outside earth”. Other than advertising through mass media and technical forums, these “scientists” are more likely to be attracted by the SETI@home screensaver. This reveals a huge potential to “hire” more people interested in

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