"It's a needle in a haystack problem: 99.99% of the data is noise,"

marvinvwinkle
marvinvwinkle
Joined: 24 Feb 05
Posts: 1444
Credit: 85585
RAC: 0

I may be wrong, but I believe

I may be wrong, but I believe that Bell Labs and a man named Tyson tried for 10 years from about 1976 to 1985 to find the same waves. They finally gave up when they realized they didn't have insturments that were sensitive enough to detect the waves. I am doing this in hopes that these new investigators have the equipment to do the deed not to get some type of credit. I do like the avatars and the boxes that show the work being done at the signature lines, but mind more advanced than mine have developed these programs and they deserve the credit. Go for it!!

TFFE

Mo
Mo
Joined: 5 Mar 05
Posts: 27
Credit: 31351
RAC: 0

Thanks for the welcome,

Message 4174 in response to message 4172

Thanks for the welcome, Bryon! Excellent quote from Einstein. :)


Look here, brother, who you jiving with that cosmic debris?--Frank Zappa.

Vladimir Zarkov
Vladimir Zarkov
Joined: 27 Feb 05
Posts: 66
Credit: 4876895
RAC: 0

I'll just say that like many

I'll just say that like many others here I don't strive for recognition and fame. It's my PC doing the "hard part", not me. Helping science is the only thing that matters in projects like E@H. Why should I look for my name in some footnote?
Good luck to all!
Vladimir

Mike Hewson
Mike Hewson
Moderator
Joined: 1 Dec 05
Posts: 6589
Credit: 318608690
RAC: 405011

FWIW here's an excerpt from

FWIW here's an excerpt from my profile which I haven't changed since I joined in '05, and for me and my motivations at least it remains personally true :

Quote:
It's clearly a cutting edge project, about as 'pure' as science as can be. I think I should mention that I personally have been less than impressed with some explanations from other projects as to whether any results ( or benefit thereof ) will be in the public domain upon completion. They know who they are, and my PC will not be assisting them. I am pleased in the knowledge that my PC WILL assist with any discovery in the nascent field of gravitational wave astronomy - which it WILL even "if only" attending to calibration/control/background issues. I hope that I have correctly gathered that in such a new area of study, what is normal vs exceptional or background vs. signal has yet to be well defined. I don't seek any attribution for such contribution - a satisfied warm inner glow will do :-) The screen saver is cool! I hope some really surprising phenomena are found, in addition to the expected!


I'd also point out the papers on the science runs ( see links on the home page ) do prominently and gracefully attribute the E@H project for it's contribution to the results they discuss, and that said papers have also already placed upper bounds upon parameters for models which seek to explain certain stellar object populations. Thus like The Hound Of The Baskervilles the silence can be significant.

It's been mentioned, a few years ago now, that volunteer contributions have not only saved the LIGO group outlay ( that they didn't have anyway ) on computing hardware/infrastructure/etc but the savings in power cost alone is quite massive ( that LIGO couldn't otherwise pay for either ). Put simply : such computational capacity that E@H represents wouldn't have otherwise occurred to date.

[caution : personal philosophy] I'd agree with Ageless by saying one is very much missing the point of distributed computing if personal fame is the goal. We have a world which tirelessly contrasts, divides and discriminates between us, all too frequently for unpleasant/evil reasons. So I welcome such productive, healthy and unify activities as they arise. E@H is a true worldwide supercomputer of considerable power and remarkably is composed of purely voluntary elements from pretty well everywhere across the globe. That's a thing of beauty ... but older fuddy duddies like me tend to think/say things like that. :-) :-) [\caution : personal philosophy]

Cheers, Mike.

I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...

... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal

tullio
tullio
Joined: 22 Jan 05
Posts: 2118
Credit: 61407735
RAC: 0

Laser interferometers are not

Laser interferometers are not the only way of detecting GWs. They were preceded by resonant mass detectors in the USA, Italy and Japan, some of which are still working. In Italy Edoardo Amaldi, a coworker of Enrico Fermi, and one of the Founding Fathers of CERN started a line of research still going on. Now we have the VIRGO European Observatory in Cascina (Pisa) which is not, unfortunately, providing any data to Einstein@home.
Tullio

dunx
dunx
Joined: 13 Aug 10
Posts: 119
Credit: 53470527
RAC: 0

RE: > I can make my own T

Message 4178 in response to message 4145

Quote:

> I can make my own T shirt.

Dennis

Do a load and sell them on here ! Then make a donation to the project ?

dunx ;- )

Matt Giwer
Matt Giwer
Joined: 12 Dec 05
Posts: 144
Credit: 6891649
RAC: 0

The issue of discovering

Message 4179 in response to message 4145

The issue of discovering something being written about as though there is a unique contribution. Factually discovering something is like winning the lottery, pure chance. Getting a "winning" WU is no different from getting a winning lottery ticket.

Increasing the odds of "winning" is the same nature, buy more tickets or process more WUs.

In both cases the only thing to recognize upon winning is luck which does not pass the scientific test of existence.

Matt Giwer
Matt Giwer
Joined: 12 Dec 05
Posts: 144
Credit: 6891649
RAC: 0

RE: The issue of

Message 4180 in response to message 4179

Quote:

The issue of discovering something being written about as though there is a unique contribution. Factually discovering something is like winning the lottery, pure chance. Getting a "winning" WU is no different from getting a winning lottery ticket.

Increasing the odds of "winning" is the same nature, buy more tickets or process more WUs.

In both cases the only thing to recognize upon winning is luck which does not pass the scientific test of existence.

Another way of looking at it. Who gets credit for discovering Neptune? Who was the first person to observe Neptune? The first observer of Neptune was Galileo who thought it was an imperfection in his telescope. As he did not report it as a new planet -- something much more unthinkable (much less thinkable?) -- he does not get the credit for the discovery.

John_Waters
John_Waters
Joined: 1 Jul 11
Posts: 20
Credit: 76699157
RAC: 0

I'll crunch W/U's with or

I'll crunch W/U's with or without the chance of credit for an obviously ultra long-shot chance of being one of those who "make" the discovery. I also spend $4 a week on the lottery, knowing my chances are zilch minus 3.But I'll certainly grab the money if it happens.

Some posters take the saintly position that we should labor out of pure love,without hope of thanks. Others seem to think that points and other "benchmarks" are all it's about.

I prefer a middle course between them. It would make me proud and happy to be mentioned on E@H,but it would be silly to expect to be listed on a formal scientific presentation.

qbuits7
qbuits7
Joined: 3 Jan 06
Posts: 106
Credit: 3256408
RAC: 0

First I searched for ET w/

Message 4182 in response to message 4181

First I searched for ET w/ seti, next was protein folding, then I looked for a "prime number" with over 12 million digits which had a $$$ prize. I realized that these searches keep me on the cutting edge of discovery and I found that I enjoy filling a number crunching machine with the latest technology (simular to my past hobby of tweaking cars). So with my hobbies - being in the frontier of discovery is everything.

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.