Signal from space, cure for AIDS? Check the power of parallel computing

Do you know that if you're not processing video, or processing huge amount of data, a lot of computers computational power is wasted each second?

While surfing the internet, watching movie or listening to music your using about 5% of one of your CPU cores. Modern PCs have up to 12 cores running up to 4GHz each.

Have you ever been thinking how to make more use of your machine?

Maybe something that would help someone.

Calculate it

There are about 1.1 Billion personal computers in the world (Feb 2012). Not including smartphones and tablets.

Sad scenario

Let's say that each computer is running 1GHz one-core processor (low probability). Let's also say that each of them is running constantly 50% of it's maximum performance. 

That gives us:

1E9 * 5E8 Hz = 5E17 = 0.5 EHz (Exaherz) ~ 2 exaflops

Happy scenario

Here we will assume that each computer is running dual-core 1,8GHz processor, and works under 20% constant load.

1E9 * 2 * 0,8 * 1,8E9 Hz = 2.88 EHz ~ 11.52 exaflop

World's fastest super computer build in 2013 - Tianhe-2 can actually achive perfomance of 33.86 petaflops. Analyzing worst scenario it is 60 times slower than globe collective, and in happy case more than 349 times (mention that we are using data from 2012 and no mobile devices, scientist predict that till 2016 there will be up to 2 Billion personal computers on the planet).

Unsolved problems

Nowadays human cope with many problems that are unable to solve due to lack of computational power. 

• searching for spinning neutron starts (pulsars) using data from sky observatories and gravitational wave detectors
• decoding Enigma messages from 1942
• teach robots artificial intelligence (parse and convert semantic nets)
• run simulations on LHC to improve it's design and detectors
• cognitive process modeling to better understand the human mind
• designing new proteins to fight diseases such as HIV, Malaria, Cancer and Alzheimer's
• ...

How can I help

You can do it all with BOINC software (PC and Android), take a closer at my example configuration:

• use all 4 cores
• work on only when processor isn't used more than 25%
• do not exceed 90% of overall CPU usage
• work only if battery level is greater than 90%, charging and not being used (Android)

Currently I'm running 3 projects:

1. searching for extraterrestrial intelligence (Seti@Home)
2. searching for pulsars (Einstein@Home)
3. searching for cures for common diseases (Rosetta@Home).

Check the full list here.

During work time I'm running BOINC at 60% (i5 4x3.2GHz, 8GB RAM) and do not feel it at all. When I leave my job I switch it to 90% to make maximum use of this power. 

Tablet (Nexus 7) that is always plugged in - also isn't lying useless. It is also running 90% but you have to disable computation when performing some stuff.

Give it a try.