Join Other Agnostics and Atheists in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
What if someone extremely important was trying to call you? Although you own
a phone, you donít have it plugged in? What would this important person be trying
to call you about? You donít know. He's never spoken with you before. What possibly
could they have to say that would be important to you, and to your life? Again, you
don't know. Alas, perhaps no one is trying to call you at all! Is it worth the effort
to plug in the phone?
This is an abstraction of the purpose for the SETI@Home program. SETI@Home is just one of the programs looking for the evidence of life elsewhere in the cosmos. The Arecibo Radio Telescope receives signals from space. When not in use for other purposes, SETI@Home captures these signals.
Instead of having a massive mainframe to parse through this information, thousands of PC computers around the world download a "work unit," go through it looking for strong signals, and send back the results. The SETI program utilizes unused CPU cycles in the form of a Screen Saver or as a background process.Using this method, over a million users have done over a 200,000 years of processing with 35 million work units processed.
SETI@Home has also allowed for the creation of groups or teams. Fellow atheist, Art Stanton, has created an "Atheist at About.COM" team. You are invited to join the SETI@Home project and the "Atheist at About.COM team."
What to do:
- Download the SETI@Home program. (Windows or Macintosh) For maximum "work unit" processing, I recommend the "text-only versions."
- Join the Atheist at About.COM team.
- Crank on those work units!
What does this have to do with Atheism or Agnosticism? Nothing, really. It's just a way to build comradery with people of common interests. Will the theists stop believing in a diety ? Naw. Will it make atheists find faith? Naw. It's just some good, clean computational fun, looking for ET.
October 22, 1999 by Kevin Cully
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