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DistributedComputing
Distributed Computing is a really neat idea: basically, you can break a complex computing problem down into chunks and then get hundreds (or thousands) of computers to each work on the individual chunks.
There are many distributed computing projects that are currently happening across the world. As with most computing-related projects these days, everything is coordinated over the Internet and e-mail.
What projects are out there?
A couple of the oldest projects are GIMPS,
SETI@Home?, and
Distributed.Net?. GIMPS searches for big (Mersenne) prime numbers, SETI@Home searches for Alien life, and Distributed.Net has been instrumental in cracking different types of encryption.
Today, many more projects have been organized, including a search to crack the 2048-bit key of the
XBOX (
NeoProject?), a search to figure out how proteins fold (
Folding@Home?), and a "
Screensaver Lifesaver?" project to find a cure for cancer.
In a slightly different type of project, a (human-based) distributed effort has been started to proofread pages for
Project Gutenberg. Isn't it amazing how the Internet allows people all over the world to contribute? :-)
What's going on at Dartmouth?
There are a number of different people working on distributed computing at Dartmouth.
- I (RobinsonTryon) contributed cycles in highschool to GIMPS, but now work on factoring Proth numbers in conjunction with ECMNet. I'm also interested in work on Odd Perfect Numbers, which could involve a distributed-computing project.
- There are multiple Dartmouth-oriented teams for GIMPS and SETI at Home?.
- Many people in biology, chemistry, and physics run different batch jobs. While not exactly distributed computing, they would probably be interested in methods that the campus could provide more computing cycles for research (see Grid Computing? for more).
More information
*related stuff(
RobinsonTryon - 16 Feb 2003