Computer power of people needed.Byline: The Register-Guard For all of LIGO's high-tech wizardry wiz·ard·ry n. pl. wiz·ard·ries 1. The art, skill, or practice of a wizard; sorcery. 2. a. A power or effect that appears magical by its capacity to transform: , it still needs a little help from its friends to find a gravity wave gravity wave n. See gravitational wave. Noun 1. gravity wave - (physics) a wave that is hypothesized to propagate gravity and to travel at the speed of light gravitation wave . The problem is this: LIGO LIGO Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (CIT & MIT) LIGO Long Island Geocaching Organization (Bellport, New York) has to search through a range of frequencies at every point in the sky to look for a source of gravity waves Gravity waves has differing meanings in differing contexts:
"It's very computationally difficult," said Michael Landry, a LIGO scientist. "What you need is a massive super- computer." But LIGO doesn't have a supercomputer, massive or otherwise. That's why researchers are asking science fans all over the world to lend a hand to give assistance. to give assistance; to help. See also: Hand Lend by donating some time on their home computers to help crunch all the numbers. The program is called Einstein@Home and is based on the same computer architecture created for the SETI@Home program, which allows individuals to help in the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. People download a special screen-saver program that runs only when the computer is idle, using the down time to analyze a small bit of the data collected by LIGO and ship the results back the next time the user connects to the Internet. The screen-saver program shows a rotating diagram of the celestial sphere celestial sphere, imaginary sphere of infinite radius with the earth at its center. It is used for describing the positions and motions of stars and other objects. with a small target marker showing where the data being analyzed came from. It doesn't affect performance because it only runs when the computer is idle or when the user turns it on. The process is known as distributed computing and has the potential to exponentially increase LIGO's computer power. The total computing power now donated to SETI SETI (sĕt`ē) [Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence], name given to a series of independent programs to detect radio signals from civilizations beyond the solar system. , for example, exceeds the capabilities of any supercomputer yet built. Right now, only about 100,000 computers are linked to the Einstein@Home program, which just launched in February. Landry said he's hoping to get the number up to about 2 million. One payback for the user is knowing that he or she is taking part in one of the great scientific efforts of our time. The other is the possibility of going down in the record book. "There's a small but finite chance that some person is going to be running this and be the first to find a gravity wave," Landry said. To download the screen saver or get more information, go to www.physics2005.org and click on Einstein@Home. - Greg Bolt |
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