Einstein@home

Einstein@Home is a program that uses your computer's idle time to search for spinning neutron stars (also called pulsars) using data from the LIGO and GEO gravitational wave detectors. Einstein@Home is a World Year of Physics 2005 project supported by the American Physical Society (APS) and by a number of international organizations.

Einstein@home project URL; http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/

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According to Albert Einstein, we live in a universe full of gravitational waves. He suggested that the movements of heavy objects, such as black holes and dense stars, create waves that change space and time. We have a chance to detect these waves, but we need your help to do it!

Gravity waves Einstein@Home uses computer time donated by computer owners all over the world to process data from gravitational wave detectors. Participants in Einstein@Home download software to their computers, which process gravitational wave data when not being used for other computer applications, like word processors or games. Einstein@Home doesn’t affect the performance of computers and greatly speeds up this exciting research.

Albert Einstein Einstein revolutionized our understanding of the universe and set the course for physics research in the twentieth century. Now, 50 years after his death and 100 years after his Special Theory of Relativity was published, we have the chance to confirm one of Einstein’s most important predictions. But we need your help. So, get out of your old car, into your house and help out on your home computers. Read on to find out why you should get involved.

Einstein suggested that we live in a universe full of gravitational waves. He proposed that exploding stars, colliding black holes and other violent events create waves that alter space and time. We have not detected these waves yet because it requires tools sensitive enough to measure very small effects. It’s like trying to detect a change in the distance from the earth to the sun equal to the width of an atom.

Aerial view of LIGO’s Hanford, WA facility. Image courtesy of LIGO Laboratory.

Technology has caught up with Einstein’s prediction. We now have detectors sensitive enough to see these waves. Two of them, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the United States and GEO 600 in Germany, are working together to find gravitational waves from stars and black holes. These experiments require enormous amounts of data to be processed, so the LIGO group created Einstein@Home.

Einstein@Home uses private computers to process LIGO and GEO 600 data. Private computer owners can download software onto their computers that receives data from a central server. The computers process the data when they are not being used for other things, like email or word processing. Then, the computers send the processed data back to the server and can get more to analyze. Einstein@Home doesn’t affect how computers perform and you can stop it any time.

Bruce Allen from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee developed the Einstein@Home project. Einstein@Home is based on SETI@Home, a similar program looking for signs of extraterrestrial life in data from the radio telescope at Arecibo Observatory. We are lucky to have the pioneering developer of SETI@home, David Anderson, helping with Einstein@Home.

Cool video that might explain Einstein's theory of Gravity Waves in the Universe

Video about the LIGO Gravitational Wave detector

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory is spearheading the completely new field of gravitational wave astronomy and opening a whole new window on the universe. LIGO's exquisitely sensitive instruments may ultimately take us farther back in time than we've ever been, catching, perhaps, the first murmurs of the universe in formation.