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The projects have been organized by category, then listed alphabetically.  A few are well-organized and have a large number of participants.  A couple even offer a cash reward.  We reviewed some projects in-depth and offer our opinion on those.  For the rest, we have added comments as we can.

Astronomy Projects
Extraterrestrial Intelligence: SETI@Home
Process radio signals from space collected in the search for life on other planets.  SETI is probably the most famous distributed computing project.  Millions of people are participating.  The project is well organized with an excellent web page and statistics page.  Read our full review.

Cryptography Projects
RSA Labs 64-bit secret-key challenge--crack the secret code with distributed.net
RSA Data Security is offering $10,000 for whoever finds the 64-bit key that cracks their secret code.  distributed.net will split this prize with you.  This is a well organized project with many, many people participating.  Read our full review.  $$

RSA Labs Cryptographic Challenges page
Get the latest on RSA's various cryptographic challenges.  Find out how much you can win and the status of all current and past projects.  This is not a project per se since it would take one personal computer years to solve one challenge.  However, you can get an idea of what is coming.

Earth Science
Climate Simulation: Casino-21 climate simulation of the 21st century
Run a climate model at home using a Monte Carlo simulation.  Here's a quote from their web page.  "Climate dynamics research at RAL focuses on the use of global observing systems to study the climate system as a single entity. We are specifically interested in the use of observational data to evaluate climate models and diagnose the most serious faults in model-simulated mean climate, internal climate variability and natural and anthropogenic climate change."  This project sounds cool!  Unfortunately, they have not started, yet.  Go to this page and let them know that you are interested.

Mathematics Projects
Cunningham Chains: Search for Cunningham Chains of the Second Kind of Length Three
The web page is pretty sparse, so it's hard to tell what Cunningham Chains are.  The sponsor claims that, "Math Doctorates are NOT REQUIRED, all you need is a Pentium-class Computer."

Cunningham Numbers: NFSNET project
Help factor numbers of the form bⁿ ± 1, b=2,3,5,6,7,10,11,12 up to high powers.  This project uses the Number Field Sieve to do their factoring.  Check it out.

Factoring in General: ECMNET project
The goal of this project is to find large factors by using the Elliptic Curve Method.  This is definitely a mathematician's project.  To participate you need to know something about advanced mathematics as well as how to compile your own client.

Fermat Numbers: Factoring
This is not a distributed computing project in the pure sense of the word since there is no central source dolling out numbers to factor.  However, there are a number of software clients available that look for factors of Fermat numbers.  Download one and let the computations begin.   Perfectly Scientific, Inc. is offering small cash prizes for any factors of Fermat numbers Fn, for n = 12 through 22 found until December 31, 2001.  $$

Fermat Numbers: Generalized Fermat Prime Search
Help find some generalized fermat primes.  This project is organized by Yves Gallot.  It looks like you contact him for some number to test using whatever client you have to do the testing.

Golomb Ruler: Find the optimal 24-mark OGR
In mathematics, the term "Golomb Ruler" refers to a set of non-negative integers such that no two distinct pairs of numbers from the set have the same difference.  An Optimal Golomb Ruler (OGR) is the shortest Golomb Ruler possible for a given number of marks.  This is another project sponsored by distributed.net.  As such, it has good support, decent background information, a stable client, and good statistical reporting.  Read our full review.

Lattice Rules: Great International Search for K-Optimal Lattice Rules
Lattice rules are used for the numerical approximation of multidimensional integrals over the unit hypercube. They are designed for integrating naturally periodic integrands.  Sponsored by the University of Bergen in Norway, this project is adequately organized with good description and statistics pages.  It has a small following.  Read our full review.

Mersenne Numbers: Find a new Mersenne prime number with the good folks at GIMPS
GIMPS is searching for really, really, really large prime numbers.  Specifically, GIMPS looks for Mersenne Primes, expressed by the formula 2^P-1.  Thoughout history, the largest known prime number has usually been a Mersenne prime.  They are currently looking for prime numbers with millions of digits.  Read our full review.  $$

Mersenne Numbers: Find a factor of MM61, a double-Mersenne number
The purpose of this project is to discover a factor for the double-Mersenne number MM61.  If a factor is found, that will prove that MM61 is not a prime number.  This project is not flashy, nor will it change the world as we know it.  However, it is interesting, organized, and run by dedicated people.  Read our full review.

Multi-Perfect Numbers
A multiperfect number (or "MPFN" for short) is a positive integer whose divisors add up to some larger multiple of the original number; that is, sigma(N) = kN for some integer k greater than 2. The first multiperfect number is 120.  Jason Moxham is looking for multiperfect numbers.  He has a client available for download on his webpage.  There is not a lot of background information on his web page, but it is up to date.

Pi: Calculate the digits of pi with PiHex
They are currently calculating the quadrillionth bit of pi.  In addition to this exhaustive mathematical feat, "PiHex has identified two cpu bugs, four compiler bugs and one assembler bug, as well as identifying numerous buggy driver subsystems" according to the projects organizer, Colin Percival.  The project is scheduled to end around August 2000.

Powers: Computing Minimal Equal Sums of Like Powers
The person behind this project , Jean-Charles Meyrignac, sent us an email explaining what it is. In short, their main goal is to find solutions to the following equations:

a^6 = b^6 + c^6 + d^6 + e^6 + f^6
a^6 + b^6 = c^6 + d^6 + e^6 + f^6

This would lead to new counter-examples to the extended Euler conjecture.

Prime Numbers: Rensselaer's Twin Primes Computing Effort
This project is over, but it is interesting reading.  It was a well-organized project and is a testament to the distributed computing concept.

Prime Numbers: Search for the next prime of the form n!+1
This project looks interesting.  The page is simple, but easy to understand.  It was recently updated and is organized.  We will try to review it when some other projects get finished.

Woodall Numbers: Find prime Woodall numbers
A Woodall number is a number of the form . A Woodall prime is any prime number of the same form.  Joe Demaio has organized a search for Woodall primes.  Contact him for more information.

Physics Projects
Nuclear Material Container: The Gamma Flux Project
The folks at dcypher.net are helping someone design a better container for nuclear material.  The sponsor is writing a thesis about materials that can store spent nuclear fuel.  The current phase of the project simulates the flux of gamma radiation outside of a the steel box.  The results will be used to estimate how much heat is generated by the radiation in the volume outside the box. The ultimate goal is to have an approximation of the distribution of this heat generation, and use that information when designing a safe encapsulation for final storage of spent nuclear fuel.  Read our full review.

Do you know of any projects that we missed?  Drop us a line.

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