# What is the name of the process where thousands of home PCs do calculations together

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-name-of-the-process-where-thousands-of-home-pcs-do-calculations-together/344490>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 14, 2006, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-name-of-the-process-where-thousands-of-home-pcs-do-calculations-together/344490 "2006-02-14T18:10:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2006, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-name-of-the-process-where-thousands-of-home-pcs-do-calculations-together/344490/1 "2006-02-14T18:10:12Z")

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I was reading this article

[http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set\_id=1&click\_id=31&art\_id=qw1139934960134E516](http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=qw1139934960134E516)

Where the university wants personal PCs to devote some CPU power to doing calculations for climate change models. I have also seen experiments like these for SETI and for cancer research. Is there a name for this when a university tries to get thousands of people to volunteer their screen saver CPU power to do research?

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**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2006, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-name-of-the-process-where-thousands-of-home-pcs-do-calculations-together/344490/2 "2006-02-14T18:11:13Z")

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It is usually called distributed computing.

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**Author:** ![groman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/73ab20/32.png) [@groman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/groman)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2006, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-name-of-the-process-where-thousands-of-home-pcs-do-calculations-together/344490/3 "2006-02-14T18:30:52Z")

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Or grid computing, although sometimes that term refers to slightly different things.

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**Author:** ![leandroc76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bb73d2/32.png) [@leandroc76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leandroc76)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2006, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-name-of-the-process-where-thousands-of-home-pcs-do-calculations-together/344490/4 "2006-02-14T18:44:23Z")

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There are several of them out there.

[SETI@Home](http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/team_display.php?teamid=30427)

[Folding](http://vspx27.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=3446)

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**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2006, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-name-of-the-process-where-thousands-of-home-pcs-do-calculations-together/344490/5 "2006-02-14T18:50:26Z")

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The SDMB has a team and you should join it. We need more members.

Click here to [download the UD agent software.](http://www.grid.org/download/gold/download.htm). Follow their directions on that page to install it, then click here to [join the SDMB team](http://www.grid.org/services/teams/team.htm?id=44FC179A-BF1C-4BED-87E5-959767480CDA). The agent runs in the background and is quite unnoticeable.