# SETI @ home tech applied to Evolution: Evolution 1.0

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-home-tech-applied-to-evolution-evolution-1-0/48647>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [January 5, 2001, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-home-tech-applied-to-evolution-evolution-1-0/48647 "2001-01-05T23:16:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![foxfyre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@foxfyre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foxfyre)\
**Post date:** [January 10, 2001, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-home-tech-applied-to-evolution-evolution-1-0/48647/21 "2001-01-10T18:15:57Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Pochacco \*  
> \*\*The problem with protein folding is that in order to precisely calculate the fold you need to track the interaction of every atom with _every other atom_ in the protein and surrounding liquid. That means the complexity of the problem grows as the square of the number of atoms (O(n^2) in “big-O” notation).
> 
> For one protein with several hundred atoms this can take _months_ of supercomputer time. \*\*

OUCH…Interesting… I guess the best bet would be abstraction…Still, I think It is very possible to make something much, much more realistic than anything out there using this distributed networking, relativly easily.

Another thing Ive considered is to somehow design the enviroment to evolve as well as the creatures. ie, the enviroment is desined to somehow evolve so that the creatures can have more variation. I have some vague ideas on how to do this but the idea needs alot of work.  
-Fox

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**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\
**Post date:** [January 10, 2001, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-home-tech-applied-to-evolution-evolution-1-0/48647/22 "2001-01-10T18:37:33Z")

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This is what I was getting at. Some problems are easy to state, but rapidly become impossible to calculate. If you want to simulate biochemistry, you are talking about something that would consume all the computer power in the US.

The easiest way to determine how a protein will fold up is to create the amino acid sequence and observe how it folds up. Computing the structure is incredibly resource intensive. I suppose we could set up a SETI@home type program to determine protein folding, that would actually work. But, how are you going to get volunteers?

I suspect that in the future everyone will sell their spare cycles…or perhaps you could agree to give your ISP access to your spare cycles to defray your ISP costs. The ISPs would sell the computational power to various companies who need number crunching.

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**Author:** ![foxfyre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@foxfyre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foxfyre)\
**Post date:** [January 10, 2001, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-home-tech-applied-to-evolution-evolution-1-0/48647/23 "2001-01-10T18:56:17Z")

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LEmur866

Good points, but please re-read the last couple of my posts. I listed several different possible LOD schemes. Also re-read the reqs, one of the reqs is a very expandable system. Part of this is that I want to eventually increase the LOD.

As for volunteers. There are millions of volunteers for Seti@home, but they dont get anything at all. My idea is better. You can watch your portion of the MiniVerse develop and DL a small portion of the MiniVerse to Play God with.

-Fox

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