Monday, January 31, 2011

Distributed Computing Projects Looking for You!

As your mother always said, "Many hands make light work."

The same is true for science.  For really large calculation-intense problems scientists would love to just build a giant supercomputer, plug in the data, and let the computer zip along until it finds an answer. But despite recent gains in computer technology many problems would still takes months (or years!) of data crunching even with the fastest supercomputers. So instead we need many hands, or in this case, many computers, to make light work.  The technical term for all of this is "Distributed Computing".

This is one of the first big areas to utilize citizen scientists and you'll see there's a new OpenScientist Distributed Computing Projects Open for You web page devoted to these projects.  Only a few projects are listed now but it will be updated regularly as I can test run them all.  For starters, check out the projects listed below and if any of these sound interesting to you here are a few you may want to try...
  • Searching for Alien Life: SETI-@Home (http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/) is one of the first and most popular programs available. Running for nearly 12 years, the project uses your computer to help search space-based radio signals for signs of intelligent life. See OpenScientist's SETI-at-Home blog post for more details.
  • Protein Folding: The Folding@Home project (http://folding.stanford.edu/) simulates biological proteins to discover their natural shapes and understand how those shapes are created. In many cases the incorrect folding of proteins or a small problem in it's overall shape can cause serious health problems. Most recently the team has been studying Alzheimer's and Huntington's Disease, and even show the results of all this effort on their list of 75+ peer-reviewed publications.
  • Prizes for Prime Numbers: The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search is looking for a particular type of prime number from the formula (2 to the power P) - 1. From a technology standpoint this knowledge is useful for encryption and computer standpoint. But for everyday people it also means cash! The Electronic Frontier Foundation is offering cash prizes for discovering extremely high prime numbers, and the project team is offering users whose computer's find these numbers to share in the winnings. So downloading this project doesn't just help science but can help you win the prize as well.
  • Designing Solar Cells: The Clean Energy Project is attempting to increase the efficiency of solar cells by identifying organic molecules that best collect, store and transfer energy from the sun. By testing a massive number of potential candidates through distributed mathematical modeling scientists hope to greatly increase solar cell efficiencies and test the best ways to manufacture them.
  • Discover Gravity Waves: Gravity waves were predicted by Albert Einstein, and although many astronomers agree that violent events in space can cause gravitational "ripples", none have ever been found. Scientists expect they are finally ready to detect them and have built to gravity wave detectors (one in the U.S., one in Germany) for that purpose. Since they create a huge amount of data the http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/einsteinathome/index.html project scientists have turned to distributed computing users for the massive amount of analysis needed to identify a wave.
Of course these are just a few options. But keep coming back when there will be many for you to choose from. And if you know of any we missed, or would like us to include a project you are working on, just let us know in the comments below!

Getting Started with BOINC Is Easy:
  1. Go to the BOINC web site and click on Download BOINC Software.
  2. Check that you meet the necessary system requirements and click the "Download BOINC"
  3. Once downloaded, double-click the file to install the software.  Choose a target directory for the program and follow all the prompts.
  4. Once the program is installed, click on the BOINC Manager file to start the program.  On the top of the window, click on "Tools" and click on "Attach to a Project or Account Manager" and then "Attach to a Project".
  5. Select the desired project or projects you wish to contribute to from the list provided.  If you aren't sure what each one does, check out our Distributed Computing web page to learn more and decide if you want to join.  If you are a new user, set up a new account with a Username and password.
  6. That's all there is to it!  Just let your computer run and everything will happen automatically.

10 comments:

  1. Well-Written article. It will be supportive to anyone who utilizes it, including me. Keep doing what you are doing – can't pause to read more posts. Thanks for the precious help. The IP address of a device is 192.168.l.254 which is regarded as a private IP address. Whenever people buy a new router or modem, it comes with a default username and password. These particular login credentials help the users to protect their internet from irrelevant connections. Unfortunately, if you forget the router password then, it becomes quite challenging to find it out.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It’s hard to find knowledgeable people on this topic, but you sound like you know what you’re talking about! Thanks

    Click Here
    Visit Web
    Myfsk.org

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think the admin of this site is in fact working hard.Thanks for ones marvelous posting! 바둑이게임

    ReplyDelete
  4. This article is very detailed And i am happy reading this. 바카라사이트

    ReplyDelete
  5. gclub try to play royal slot for free 24 hours a day, get all games from every camp, want to play new slots games, new camps, can choose to play immediately ak47th

    ReplyDelete
  6. The Tamil Nadu Board of Secondary Education (TNBSE) and its official website provide the most up-to-date information and changes. TNBSE SSLC Exam Question Paper 2023 TNBSE SSLC Exam Question Paper 2023 TNBSE SSLC Exam Question Paper 2023 TNBSE SSLC Exam Question Paper 2023 TNBSE Urdu and French Dear all Tamil Nadu students, TN SSLC Question Paper 2023 please go to the official URL provided below to get your Tamil Nadu Board Class 10th Question Paper 2023 as it is published. Soon, a direct link to the Tamil Nadu Board 10th Question Paper 2023 will be provided here.

    ReplyDelete