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SETI@home is in hiberation

setiathome.berkeley.edu

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Re: SETI@home is in hiberation

#21

Post by netsharc »

p-e-w wrote: post #13
leokennis wrote: post #4

I remember feeling like a right scientific benefactor running the SETI@Home screensaver on my Pentium II, looking at the fancy graphs. Was it all for nothing?

The fact that all SETI endeavors haven’t really found anything is actually a very valuable result, because it constrains “they’re everywhere, we just haven’t been looking” arguments quite a bit. Even humanity’s (weak) radio emissions would be detectable from tens of light years away, and stronger emissions from much further. So the idea that intelligent life is absolutely everywhere that was liberally tossed around a…

Probably due to the Great Filter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjtOGPJ0URM

Re: SETI@home is in hiberation

#22

Post by viraptor »

jomohke wrote: post #17

It looks like folding@home is still going https://foldingathome.org/ I'm quite surprised these are still around as I hadn't seen them mentioned in so long. I always assumed the phase out of screensavers (and introduction of CPU low power modes) were terminal for them.

Are they doing anything not covered by alphafold? I thought that approach basically crushed all previous efforts.

Re: SETI@home is in hiberation

#26

Post by sgt »

Used to have this running on all of our computers in the office back in 1999, or 2000. Such a satisfying screensaver! Then I went even further and put it on the servers too.

Re: SETI@home is in hiberation

#27

Post by UnlockedSecrets »

jve wrote: post #12
keepamovin wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just completed. Published paper. Final release & final analysis: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/ade5ab/...

[flagged]

Hello chatgpt, what should I make for dinner with bananas and chicken breast as the only ingredients?

Re: SETI@home is in hiberation

#28

Post by MontyCarloHall »

p-e-w wrote: post #13
leokennis wrote: post #4

I remember feeling like a right scientific benefactor running the SETI@Home screensaver on my Pentium II, looking at the fancy graphs. Was it all for nothing?

The fact that all SETI endeavors haven’t really found anything is actually a very valuable result, because it constrains “they’re everywhere, we just haven’t been looking” arguments quite a bit. Even humanity’s (weak) radio emissions would be detectable from tens of light years away, and stronger emissions from much further. So the idea that intelligent life is absolutely everywhere that was liberally tossed around a…

>Even humanity’s (weak) radio emissions would be detectable from tens of light years away, and stronger emissions from much further.

That's not true. Non-directional radio transmissions (e.g. TV, broadcast radio) would not be distinguishable from cosmic background radiation at more than a light year or two away [0]. Highly directional radio emissions (e.g. Arecibo message) an order of magnitude more powerful than the strongest transmitters on Earth would only be visible at approximately 1000 light years away [1], and would only be perceptible if the detector were perfectly aligned with the transmission at the exact time it arrived.

[0] https://physics.stackexchange.com/a/245562

[1] https://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0610377.pdf

Re: SETI@home is in hiberation

#29

Post by cess11 »

viraptor wrote: post #22
jomohke wrote: post #17

It looks like folding@home is still going https://foldingathome.org/ I'm quite surprised these are still around as I hadn't seen them mentioned in so long. I always assumed the phase out of screensavers (and introduction of CPU low power modes) were terminal for them.

Are they doing anything not covered by alphafold? I thought that approach basically crushed all previous efforts.

Here's their take on it:

https://foldingathome.org/2024/05/02/alphafold-opens-new-opp...

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