原文取自： http://www.universetoday.com/2008/01/03/setihome-needs-you/ written by Nancy Atkinson SETI@home Needs You! SETI@home需要你 If your New Year’s resolutions include trying something new, expanding your horizons, or doing something to benefit humanity, this is for you: SETI@home needs more volunteers to help crunch data in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). And the easy part is that your desktop computer does all the work. 如果你的新年新希望包括嘗試些新東西、擴展你的視野，或作些有益於人類 的事，這正是你想要的：SETI@home急需更多志願者來處理搜尋外星生命的資料。 簡單的是，你的桌上型電腦就能完成所有差事。 SETI uses radio telescopes to listen for narrow band-width radio signals from space. Since these signals don’t occur naturally, a detection of such a signal would indicate technology from an extraterrestrial source. SETI計畫利用電波望遠鏡聆聽來自太空的窄波段電波訊號。由於這些訊號不會 自然產生，若偵測到它們，就表示可能來自於地球外的科技。 The SETI project at the University of California-Berkley gets data from world's largest radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, which has recently been updated with seven new and more sensitive receivers. The improved frequency coverage for the telescope is now generating 500 times more data for the SETI project than before, and more volunteers are needed to handle the increase in data. 由加州大學柏克萊分校主持的SETI計畫，從位於波多黎各阿雷錫波的電波望遠鏡 獲取資料。這個世界最大的電波望遠鏡最近又新增了七個更加敏銳的接收器。 改進後的頻率涵蓋範圍所產生的資料是原先的五百倍，也更需要志願者來處理暴 增的資料。 According to project scientist Eric Korpela, the new data amounts to 300 gigabytes per day, or 100 terabytes (100,000 gigabytes) per year, about the amount of data stored in the U.S. Library of Congress. "That's why we need all the volunteers," he said. "Everyone has a chance to be part of the largest public participation science project in history." 計畫科學家艾利克‧柯佩拉 (Eric Korpela) 表示，新資料的份量每天可達三千億 位元組，或每年一百兆位元組，相當於美國國會圖書館所儲存的資料總量。「所以 我們需要更多志願者，」他說：「每個人都有機會參與史上最大的公眾科學計畫。」 The SETI@home premise is simple but brilliant: Instead of using a monstrously huge and expensive supercomputer to analyze all the data, it uses lots of small computers, all working simultaneously on different parts of the analysis. Participants download a special screensaver for their home computers, and when the computer is idle, the screensaver kicks in to grab data from UC Berkley, analyze the data and send back a report. SETI@home was launched in May of 1999. SETI@home的概念簡單又高明：它不用龐大又昂貴的超級電腦來分析資料，而是改由 許多小電腦同時處理不同的部份。參與者只需在家用電腦下載一個特別的螢幕保護 程式，當電腦閒置時，螢幕保護程式便會從柏克萊加大讀取數據，分析並回傳結果。 SETI@home自1999年五月開始營運。 The SETI@home software has now been upgraded to deal with all the new data generated by the updated Arecibo telescope. The telescope can now record radio signals from seven regions of the sky simultaneously instead of just one. It also has greater sensitivity and 40 times more frequency coverage. 現在SETI@home軟體已升級，能處理更新後的阿雷錫波望遠鏡的資料。望遠鏡目前已 可同時記錄來自七個不同天空區域的電波訊號。它也擁有更強的靈敏度，及四十倍的 頻率涵蓋範圍。 So, if the phrase “to search out new life and new civilizations” inspires you, here’s your chance to be part of the largest community of dedicated users of any internet computing project. Currently SETI@home has 170,000 individuals donating time on 320,000 computers. 所以，如果這句台詞「找尋新的生命，及新的文明」激勵了你，這是你參與最大的 網路運算計畫社群的絕佳良機。目前SETI@home包含十一萬名使用者及其所貢獻的 三十二萬部電腦。 "Earthlings are just getting started looking at the frequencies in the sky; we're looking only at the cosmically brightest sources, hoping we are scanning the right radio channels," said project chief scientist Dan Werthimer. "The good news is, we're entering an era when we will be able to scan billions of channels. Arecibo is now optimized for this kind of search, so if there are signals out there, we or our volunteers will find them." 「人們對來自太空中波頻的調查才剛起步；我們目前只注意宇宙中最亮的源， 並期望所看的是正確的電波頻道。好消息是，我們正邁入一個可掃瞄億萬個 頻道的新時代，而阿雷錫波現在已可有效進行此類搜尋。所以，若真有訊號 存在，我們或這些志願者將會找到它們。」計劃首席科學家丹‧魏席瑪 (Dan Werthimer) 說。 --

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