Spike Jones wrote: ...What if... SETI@home does manage to find ET...
There is yet another way to look at this. From reading the GIMPS
posts on SETI, it is clear that many are seeing SETI as a competitor
for idle CPUs. Yes, it is that, in a sense. I see that SETI@home is
getting nearly as much CPU time as GIMPS, and it is only in its fourth
full day. (Demonstrates the power of publicity). However, if we view
SETI@home, not as a competing sibling but rather as a robust
offspring, then perhaps it is not so bitter. I still think GIMPS will
be the winner in the long run, for many new CPU idlers will sign
on to SETI, realize the power of distributed computing, and many
will perhaps land in GIMPS. Sure will will lose a few GIMPSers
to SETI@home, but perhaps we will gain many.
I see arguments for why there cannot be ETs, and other arguments
for why they *must* be there, but in fact no one knows. Is not this
the nature of scientific investigation, to find out? And GIMPS? As
we say in my business, one test is worth a thousand expert opinions.
Secondly, since I am on the topic of dynamic optimism, consider what
we are doing whenever we get the result "2^yakkityyak-1 is not prime."
So, we have found nothing, right? NO! We have discovered
*another* Mersenne composite! One that was unknown before.
This process cannot be shortcut; the only way to know for sure
if a Mersenne number is composite is to test it.
So, look on the bright side, my mathematical friends. We are mapping
the mathematical landscape every time we discover a new Mersenne
composite, even if they are as common as grains of sand on the
beach. Of course we want to find the diamonds, but to do so
requires sifting the sand. When we map this landscape, it is the
same for all time and all the universe. SETI@home is making a
map of sorts too. Let us wish them well and continue. spike
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