Say Hi to E.T.!
Wouldn’t it be cool if we found a way to solve the world’s problems using technology? Some problems that need immediate solutions are:
- Alternative Sources of energy – Crude oil is scarce. We have about a 100 years worth left. After that, the world will come to a standstill. We need to quickly use alternative sources of energy and make it commercially viable. What about Nuclear Cars like the Nuclear Submarines? Sounds interesting?
- Cure for diseases – Not just a cure, but how do we prevent cancer and other dreaded diseases? How about improving medical technology such as cryo-surgery or Gamma knife?
- Supercomputers – How do we build supercomputers that help us solve huge problems in nanoseconds?
- Artificial Intelligence – How do we create and control Artificial Intelligence?
- Global warming – How do we solve the problem of global warming?
With all the research underway, what can we do to speed up this process? Well, maybe we could get it touch with ET. Communicating with Extraterrestrial Intelligence will eventually help transfer their technology to us. Do you want to communicate with ET?
Really? Is this a joke? Or science fiction?
No – it’s real. The SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) helps us do just that. The SETI@Home project is the world’s biggest distributed computing framework started in May 1999 by the University of Berkley. Today, more than 5.2 million users across the world ‘donate’ their computing power to analyze radio transmissions from outer space.
SETI@Home uses radio telescopes across the world to listen to narrow-bandwidth radio signals from outer space. Such signals are not known to occur naturally, so detecting such signals would show evidence of extraterrestrial technology. But there is way too much data to analyze and that’s why they need our help.
Go to the SETI website and download the BOINC software. The software is cool, light, unobtrusive, safe, and gives you total control on how much resource you want to contribute. (I just wish they had iOS or Android Apps to utilize the millions of smartphones out there)
If you’re not using PC power management on your computer, you can assign how much CPU power you want to donate during idle time. Imagine the number of times we leave our computers ON overnight! Running the BOINC software will help SETI@Home use a bit of your processing power to analyze radio transmissions from outer space.
I have installed the SETI application at home (don’t install it on your work computer since your boss wont be pleased to see you searching for Extraterrestrial Intelligence at work). Using the SETI application, we could help speed up the process of getting in touch with Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Future technology could help us solve today’s problems on Earth. If you are worried that something like Independence Day or Battle Los Angeles will happen, it might just turn out that ETs are extremely friendly.
Once you start searching for alien life forms, make sure you bolt your door at night. If you hear a strange sound, don’t be surprised to find ET outside your door waiting to phone home!
