Searching for ET with Help from Three Million Volunteers:
SETI@home, SERENDIP, Radio and Optical SETI

Dan Werthimer
University of California, Berkeley

Werthimer will discuss the rationale behind the
search for radio and laser signals from other civilizations
and review current SETI programs around the world. 

Werthimer will focus on the SETI@home search at 
the world's largest radio telescope.  The SETI@home project 
uses desktop computers from more than three million volunteers 
in 226 countries.   Participants download a screen-saver program 
from the web, and data from the Arecibo radio telescope is
distributed via the internet to this program.
The program analyzes the data, searching for narrow-band 
continuous and pulsed signals.  SETI@home participants 
have contributed 800,000 years of computer time so far 
and have formed Earth's most powerful supercomputer.
Users have the small but captivating possibility that their 
computer will detect the first signal from a civilization 
beyond Earth