数千英国电脑用户明年将联网寻找宇宙神秘力量
数千英国电脑用户明年将联网寻找宇宙神秘力量--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2004年11月26日02:48 重庆晨报
据《泰晤士报》报道，作为纪念爱因斯坦几项最伟大发现庆祝活动的一部分，数千名英国电脑用户明年将加入寻找宇宙中最神秘力量的行列当中。
运用闲置电脑空间
“Einstein@home”计划将利用家庭和办公电脑的闲置空间，分析能够证实引力波存在的数据。爱因斯坦曾在他的广义相对论中预测宇宙可能存在引力波，但科学家迄今为止并没有发现。电脑用户只需下载与爱因斯坦相貌相像的屏幕保护程序，将自己的电脑联到互联网上，这样，将能浏览两家寻找引力波的实验室的原始结果。每当电脑处于闲置状态，电脑屏幕保护程序便会启动，其强大的处理能力将会加入到搜寻引力波的队伍中。这种将数十万台小型电脑的闲置空间集中起来寻找引力波的方式无疑比科学家单纯依靠自己的力量强大得多。模仿外太空搜索计划
“Einstein@home”计划是模仿“SETI@home”(搜索地球外文明计划)进行的。“SETI@home”是由“搜寻地外智慧(SETI)”组织发起的一项旨在利用联到互联网上的成千上万台电脑的闲置计算能力检测来自太空原始无线电信号的巨大工程。牛津大学的一个研究小组正利用同样的方法寻找能充当白血病潜在治疗药的化合物。
据引力波领域的专家称，引力波是一项值得期待的伟大发现，“Einstein@home”计划的启动意味着一旦发现引力波，公众将可以分享这份荣誉。
引力波是像超新星爆炸等能量剧烈活动事件所产生的时间与空间结构中的波纹。(杨孝文)
[ Last edited by 碧城仙 on 2005-1-1 at 04:00 PM ] 分布式计算的项目是越来越多了,看来即将迎来一个百家争鸣的时代. 我有个同学在MIT做跟Einstein@home相关的工作，所以我也登记了一个。 中国人一定要参加
要不然真的发现了就没我们的份了~~~~~ 我也来参加 Einstein@home 项目官方网站：
http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/
项目使用 BOINC 平台，使用前请先注册，注册页面：
http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/create_account_form.php
下载 BOINC 地址：
http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/download.php 关于“爱因斯坦在他的广义相对论中预测宇宙可能存在引力波”的相关物理知识可以到
http://www.physics2005.org/查看（英文页面）。
关于 Einstein@home 项目和引力波的相关知识可以到 http://www.physics2005.org/events/einsteinathome/index.html 查看（英文）。
[ Last edited by 碧城仙 on 2004-12-27 at 11:46 AM ] 还没有完全开放account creation 不错，有空去看看 关于该项目的详细介绍如下：（英文）
转自：http://www.physics2005.org/events/einsteinathome/index.html
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Einstein@Home
http://www.physics2005.org/events/images/sign-up.gif
Albert Einstein discovered long ago that we are adrift in a universe filled with waves from space. Colliding black holes, collapsing stars, and spinning pulsars create ripples in the fabric of space and time that subtly distort the world around us. These gravitational waves have eluded scientists for nearly a century. Exciting new experiments will let them catch the waves in action and open a whole new window on the universe - but they need your help to do it!
What is Einstein@Home?
What are GEO 600 and LIGO?
What is a gravitational wave?
How can you help?
What platforms will be compatible?
What should you do?
http://www.physics2005.org/events/images/einsteinathome.jpg
What is Einstein@Home?
http://www.physics2005.org/events/images/chandra-crab.jpg
Pulsar-driven Crab Nebula, as photographed by the orbiting
Chandra x-ray Observatory
Einstein@Home is a project developed to search data from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory (LIGO) in the US and from the GEO 600 gravitational wave observatory in Germany for signals coming from rapidly rotating neutron stars, known as pulsars. Scientists believe that some pulsars may not be perfectly spherical, and if so, they should emit characteristic gravitational waves, which LIGO and GEO 600 will begin to detect in coming months.
Bruce Allen of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's (UWM) LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC) group is leading the development of the Einstein@Home project.
Einstein@Home is one, small part of the LSC scientific program. It is being set up as a distributed computing project, which means that it relies on computer time donated by private computer users like you to search for pulsars.
What are GEO 600 and LIGO?
GEO 600 is a gravitational wave observatory in Hanover, Germany built by an international collaboration of scientists from the UK and Germany. LIGO consists of two US facilities, one located in Livingston, Louisiana and the other in Hanford, Washington.
http://www.physics2005.org/events/images/livingston-aerial.jpg
Aerial view of LIGO’s Livingston, LA facility
courtesy of LIGO Laboratory
http://www.physics2005.org/events/images/hanford-aerial.jpg
Aerial view of LIGO’s Hanford, WA facility
courtesy of LIGO Laboratory
All three observatories measure ripples in the fabric of spacetime known as gravitational waves. The waves are detected with perpendicular pairs of laser beams located at each facility.
http://www.physics2005.org/images/spacer.gif
http://www.physics2005.org/events/images/hanford-mirror.jpg
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Adjusting the mirrors at Hanford
courtesy of LIGO Laboratory
When a gravitational wave passes by, it can change the lengths of the paths the laser beams follow by tiny amounts. LIGO and GEO 600 scientists observe gravitational waves by comparing these changes in the laser beam paths. Longer laser beams mean greater sensitivity. The lasers beams travel back and forth between pairs of mirrors that are 600 meters apart in GEO and four kilometers apart in the LIGO facilities, which makes these observatories very sensitive. In fact LIGO should be able to measure changes in the laser beam paths as small as one-hundred-millionth the diameter of a hydrogen atom.
What is a gravitational wave?
http://www.physics2005.org/events/images/gwave.jpg
courtesy of LIGO Laboratory
Gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of space and time produced by events in our galaxy and throughout universe, such as black hole collisions, shockwaves from the cores of exploding supernovas, and rotating pulsars. These ripples in the space-time fabric travel toward Earth, bringing with them information about their origins, as well as invaluable clues to the nature of gravity.
Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves in his general theory of relativity, but only now in the 21st Century has technology advanced enough for scientists to detect and study them. Although gravitational waves have not yet been detected directly, their influence on a binary pulsar (two neutron stars orbiting each other) has been measured accurately, and was found to be in good agreement with original predictions. Joseph Taylor and Russell Hulse shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics for their studies in this field.
How can you help?
Einstein@Home will rely on private owners of PCs, like you, to donate computer time to the analysis of LIGO data. All you’ll have to do is install a small, screen saver program to your computer. The screen saver will automatically download a tiny portion of the enormous data set that LIGO will collect. When your computer is otherwise idle, it will analyze the data and send it back to the LIGO scientists. The screen saver only runs when you’re not using the computer, or when you choose to manually turn the program on. Einstein@Home will not affect your computer’s performance.
We are fortunate to have David Anderson, the pioneering developer of SETI@Home, helping us put the Einstein@Home project together. SETI@Home is a revolutionary distributed computing program that searches data from the Arecibo radio observatory for signs of extraterrestrial life. The total computing power donated to SETI@Home currently far exceeds the capabilities of any super computer yet built.
What platforms will be compatible?
The screensavers are being developed for Linux, Windows and Mac operating systems.
What should you do?
Sign up to be notified when Einstein@Home is ready to go live! We can't send you the screen saver right now - it will be available as part of the World Year of Physics celebration in early 2005. But if you get on the list, you'll be among the first to know when everything is ready. We hope as many as a million people will join the effort, which means we need to compile a list of potential users as soon as possible. Einstein@Home is real - and important - science, at the grassroots level.
Sign-up!
[ Last edited by 碧城仙 on 2005-1-2 at 10:32 PM ] 目前可以通过 http://www.physics2005.org/cgi-bin/wyp.cgi?ID=1000进行预注册。
在该页面中输入您的E-mail地址，勾选复选框，然后提交“Submit”即可。
注册页面英文说明如下：
Please enter your email address to be informed when Einstein@Home is ready to launch. The project is planned to begin searching the sky for pulsars in early 2005. We'll send you a note to make sure that you are among the first to have a chance to join this historic, gravitational wave research project.
I've always wondered what life for lab rats is like. Let me know when the beta release of Einstein@Home is available so that I can help test the program before it's FDA approved.
注册页面的文字说明大意是：
Einstein@Home 项目将在2005年初开始启动，将用来寻找天空中的无线电脉冲，当 Einstein@Home 项目启动时，我们将在第一时间通知您，以便您能够成为第一个参加这项具有历史意义的研究万有引力波的研究计划项目的人。
我对实验室里的老鼠的生活非常的感兴趣，我想知道它们如何生活，同样的，我对 Einstein@Home 项目的测试版本也非常的感兴趣，我愿意为项目的测试尽一份绵薄之力。
注册提交之后，请再次提交“Submit”确认即可。
[ Last edited by 碧城仙 on 2005-1-2 at 10:58 PM ] 应该存在引力波
对以上一帖中出现的图片做些说明
http://www.physics2005.org/events/images/chandra-crab.jpg1 由规律脉动力驱动形成的蟹状星云 呈现轨道状
http://www.physics2005.org/events/images/livingston-aerial.jpg
2 鸟瞰ligo的Livingston，Ligo实验室的LA设备的宏图。
http://www.physics2005.org/events/images/hanford-aerial.jpg
3 鸟瞰LIGO的Hanford，Ligo实验室的Wa设备的宏图。
http://www.physics2005.org/events/images/hanford-mirror.jpg
4 在Hanford实验室调试镜片
当引力波经过的时候，会使激光束产生微量的偏移。LIGO和GEO的600为专家就是通过比较这些微小的偏移来观察重力场的越长的激光束说明敏感度越高。在GEO激光束在相距600米的镜面之间反射而在LIGO则是在4公里之间，这使得观测精度大大提高。事实上，LIGO可以在直径为亿级数量级的原子中进行激光的反射以研究重力场的变化。
