posted on Jan, 6 2004 @ 06:36 AM
Originally posted by DarkHelmet
I just downloaded Seti@home and about 2 hours in my chart started goping haywire... Is it normal?
Hi DH!!
Without seeing the sort of display you saw, it is impossible to say whether it is "normal" or not - the thing to do is to occasionally look at the
display and compare what you saw then with what you see "now" so as to get a "feel" of how SETI@home analyses data. One thing *not* to "worry"
about is whether you "miss" something - SETI@home functions automatically, so *if* the signal *was* significant ie contained a radio burst from ET,
then it would be "reported" as anomalous when the WU was returned to SETI@home. That is what the program does, of course - it works without our
intervention and the need to "stare at the screen" or listen, as Jodie Foster did, in "Contact" !! I don't think any of us expect to "hear"
broadcasts from ET - rather a complex mix of radio emissions which, by the sheer quantity, make a "place in space" appear to be very "bright" in
the radio spectrum.
So, let your computer run SETI@home and watch the VDU occasionally so you have an of what is "normal" - and what just *might* be an elusive - but
sought after - signal from ET!!