Go Boilers! And welcome to the homepage of the Purdue University SETI@home team. This team was founded in May 1999, and has been the most active and productive Purdue SETI team ever since.
What is SETI@home?
SETI@home is a research project based at the University of California Berkeley campus. The project's goal is to identify communication signals from outer space that may have originated from intelligent lifeforms. This is accomplished by performing calculations on radio telescope data from Aricebo. The calculations attempt to separate the 'noise' that comprises most of the data from any coherent signals. Due to the sheer amount of data, no one computer could possibly perform the calculations in a timely fashion... and that's where you and I come in. By donating the 'unused' processing power of our computers, we can greatly speed up the research process. To learn more about SETI@home and its methods, check out their "About Us" page: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/sah_about.php
How can I participate?
Simple instructions can be found at the SETI@home main page: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu
Don't forget to join team 'Purdue University' after signing up!
What if I don't care about ET?
No worries - your idle CPU time can be donated to other worthy research projects. SETI@home, along with many other projects, is administered through a common distributed computing platform: BOINC. Check out the list of BOINC projects at:
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/projects.php
Important Note!
Remember - if your computer is running BOINC, then it's using more electricity that it would otherwise, even if only a little. You can minimize the impact of BOINC on your computer (and your electric bill, and the environment) by 'throttling down' its use to as little as 10% of the available processing power. Conversely, you can set BOINC to use every available CPU cycle. If you're curious about the potential power consumption, I recommend looking up your chip at the Wiki list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CPU_power_dissipation
Better yet, take some power-conserving steps that compensate for your BOINC activities. Replace all your incandescent light bulbs with compact flourescents, go easy on the AC settings, and consider a more efficient automobile. Walk or bike instead of driving, and buy products made from or packaged in recycled materials. It all adds up.