And then news has to go and break out, or, Gravitational physics goes BOINC.*
Gee, thanks, Mr. Sun. I go read your goofing on the Large Hadron Collider only to find some actual news contained therein, so now I have to do some work. Grrr.
It was sort of an indirect trip, however.
I read about the collider, a particle-physics project, and got interested because it is generating so much data that analyzing it all will require "distributed computing" -- that is, the data are broken up into pieces and shipped to computers all over the world for analysis, then shipped back. Otherwise, even the biggest, fastest, smokin'-hottest computer in the world would take [Carl Sagan voice] meelyuns an' meelyns of yeerz [/Carl Sagan voice] to analyze it all.
Perhaps the best-known distributed-computing program is SETI@Home, in which people can use their idle work or home computers to analyze data gathered by radio telescopes searching for signs of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. (Participants also get a way-cool screensaver out of the deal.)
So I e-mailed the P.R. person for the Large Hadron Collider project to ask whether I or, you know, Joe/Jane Public with a computer, could participate in the data analysis.
Her diplomatic answer: Not now; maybe later. However, she said, there is another distributed-computing project that the public can participate in, called Einstein@Home, which seaches for spinning neutron stars (pulsars), using data gathered by gravitational-wave detectors. Participants download a program to analyze data, as they do in SETI@Home, in an effort to confirm or disprove the notion of gravity as waves, Albert Einstein's last untested prediction. It is one among many projects created to mark 2005, the centennial of the publication of Einstein's greatest works, as the World Year of Physics.
I would be near-suicidal over the depths of real, actual news into which I had fallen were it not for the name of the program you download to participate in this effort: BOINC. Pronounced "Boink!" Who cares what it stands for?? It's called BOINC!
Anyway, if you want a BOINC -- ahem. If you want to participate in Einstein@Home ... and I know you want to ... you can get more info or get BOINC here.
(*A play on the title of a "Calvin and Hobbes" cartoon collection.)
UPDATE: My love for physics is not infinite, however. For one thing, I have no desire to create my own black hole.
