[RussEfarmer]

BOINC (Berkley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) is an open source program that allows you to contribute to fields of math and science with nothing but the spare processing power of your computer. Anyone with nearly any computer on the planet can download this software, select a project to participate in, make an account on that project, and have their computer crunch numbers on behalf of that project.

First of all, how does it do this? To boil it down, you have a central server machine representing that project that hosts the project website, accounts, and most importantly, project work. When you register with that project (for example, The Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence at home, AKA SETI@Home), your BOINC client software will request workunits from the project, download them, and start running them based on the preferences you set in the software. Once your computer completes the workunit (which will range from a couple of minutes to several hours depending on the project), your computer will send the result back to the project server, and you will receive project credit. That's all that happens behind the scenes: you get work, you crunch the work, and you send the result back.

Second of all, why would people want your computing power? Well, a lot of science comes down to crunching numbers, and crunching numbers takes computing power. Unfortunately, scientists are NOT made of money, and supercomputers are really expensive. So what do they do? They turn to you! Normal computer users usually leave their personal computers on throughout the day, and they usually do not do anything very intensive while someone is off at work or school. The idea is BOINC harvests the latent computer power that is normally wasted when you're away from the computer, and uses it for scientific research. This very easy, volunteered service both gives scientists the computing power they desperately need to advance science faster, and gives the end user a hobby to pursue in the field of computing by working towards a tangible, scientific goal.

Third of all, why would YOU do it? I understand that their is nearly no incentive for actually doing this other than a virtual score that keeps track on how much you've processed. Most of you won't care about this, but maybe some will. Personally, crunching numbers using BOINC has given me an insane respect for fields of science and computing, and you're able to live up to that respect by actually give resources sitting in your own house to those fields at no cost (bar electricity). Additionally, the communities of people that crunch BOINC projects is thriving and strong, with many users in fields of science, mathematics, and computing always trying to find a way to do better with their fellow users as a team effort, and the best part of this is that you feel like you're a part of that team, without having to become an entire scientist yourself.

Finally. what has BOINC given me? The BOINC project I run, PrimeGrid, has given me a large amount of respect and education in fields of both computing and mathematics. The amount of regular, working folks that have a hobby in finding prime numbers and solving mathematical conjectures is an amazing sight to see, and with field as niche as prime numbers, they have been very eager to assist and teach their peers on the topic. This policy of trying to share and spread knowledge on niche topics instead of playing people down for not knowing them has rubbed off on me and my writing, and is a large inspiration for me to do things like write guides for these forums or help people on this server. On top of this, the possibility of regular, ordinary people being attributed to major discoveries in science and mathematics is amazing. A great example would be Szabolcs Peter, a Hungarian resident that ran the PrimeGrid project on his home computer for only 8 months, and in October 2016, was attributed to the discovery of the worlds largest non-Mersenne prime number as well as disproving a candidate of the Sierpinski problem. This wasn't some scientist with some magic system, or some fortune 500 company with a massive datacenter that made this discovery, it was a normal dude with his gaming computer that did this.

If you have some minor technical knowledge, some spare computers, and some patience, I believe someone here could make at least some contribution to science by running this program. Many people here won't care, but maybe someone will.

A small word of warning: please do not run this program on laptop computers. Melting your laptop does not contribute to science.