Einstein@Home

Earth · **Posted:** September 6th, 2010, 12:15 pm

Does anyone here use Einstein@Home?

Einstein@Home's Main Page wrote:

Einstein@Home is a program that uses your computer's idle time to search for gravitational waves from spinning neutron stars (also called pulsars) using data from the LIGO gravitational wave detector.
...
Einstein@Home also searches for radio pulsars in binary systems, using data from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.

Pretty cool stuff. I've also created an RSBandB group if anyone wants to join it

Adbot · **Posted:** September 6th, 2010, 12:15 pm

trekkie · **Posted:** September 7th, 2010, 12:19 pm

ehhh this sounds fishy. no thanks

Aquw VettelS 776 · **Posted:** September 7th, 2010, 4:27 pm

I used Seti@Home (search for extraterrestrials) for a while, but that was quite a few months ago. I should probably start it again...

dafin0 · **Posted:** September 7th, 2010, 10:49 pm

What is a LIGO gravitational wave detector anyway.

I'm joining trekkie on this. Esxplain what this is in more detail.

Cheers, dafin0 :lol:

Earth · **Posted:** September 8th, 2010, 2:18 am

You realize that I linked you to the site, right? I shouldn't have to do everything for you, Dafin.

Alex_SE · **Posted:** September 8th, 2010, 8:35 am

trekkie wrote:

ehhh this sounds fishy. no thanks

Nah. It's a distributed computing project, just like Folding@Home (help a cause to find cures for rare or difficult to treat diseases like alzheimer), BOINC / CAS@Home or Seti@Home (a project to help a search for extraterrestrial live).

Of course everyone wonders: "How do I know I'm not helping to build nuclear bombs?" I did wonder at the start :oops:

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I can guarantee you you're not. There have been lots of positive results from these projects and I know there will be more in the future.

Adbot · **Posted:** September 8th, 2010, 8:35 am

trekkie · **Posted:** September 8th, 2010, 9:19 pm

but then... it's like for every letter to send this to the red cross will donate .50 to ___