Inopportune intervention by Canadian Yann Bellavance
The EPISTEMOTRON Project
astrophysics@home
April 11, 2004
In April 2004, I launched a project I called Epistémotron. It aimed to develop the ideas I had in twin astrophysics, using the technique of "shared computing." A group spontaneously formed, organizing around a forum. These people were primarily programmers, not astrophysicists. I was then asked to provide a kind of "accelerated refresher course in astrophysics," focused on numerical simulations, which I did and which took me about a month of work. Until today, these files had been hosted on my website. Things were gradually taking shape when a Canadian, Yann Bellavance, launched his own site, created a forum, and published the following declaration of intent on June 16:
A few weeks ago, I proposed the following idea: to create a website serving as a front-end to attract new programmers and amateur physicists.
In the long term, it will be essential to have a site that allows us to attract additional CPU power for our distributed simulations. I didn’t sense any real resistance to this idea, so I developed a minimalist site capable of receiving relevant content. It’s located at http://www.universe-at-home.com.
If you have any issues with the site’s "look and feel," please speak up. I welcome constructive criticism.
What are other relevant reasons for having a site?
- First and foremost, it allows us to host a php-based bulletin board. phpBB is extraordinary for enabling online collaboration. This will help us manage one or more projects more efficiently. The bulletin board will gradually attract a growing number of visitors through search engine indexing. This will help promote our project and the ideas of Jean-Pierre Petit. Unlike Yahoo lists, phpBB forums are completely free of mental pollution (also known as advertisements), making the forum a pleasant place to visit.
- To have a non-commercial platform for sharing our ideas about physics. You can submit articles by email to articles@universe-at-home.com. I will strictly adhere to the ethics of online publication. Therefore, your name or pseudonym will remain associated with your short publications. Of course, I don’t expect your work to meet the rigor of a student from the École Normale Supérieure. I simply hope your articles are interesting and readable. Gradually, this site could become very rich in content. I’d like it to become a kind of online magazine for free thinking in astrophysics. The only constraint: remain ethical and rational. References to UFOs or esotericism will not be tolerated. We must impose discipline upon ourselves to maintain credibility. Science today is no longer science—it’s primarily business and politics. I want our small group of programmers and physicists to remain credible. What’s the point of producing scientific content if no one believes us? Therefore, we must stay within the conceptual and ideological framework of science at the beginning of the 21st century. Jean-Pierre Petit’s work on galactic physics remains within this framework, as long as we don’t mention UFOs or extraterrestrials.
- To gain credibility. We need credibility to enter the political arena where science is decided today.
- To obtain bandwidth for downloads.
- To generate traffic. What can we do with traffic? And why invest energy in traffic generation? For those unaware, traffic in the context of the internet means a steady, regular number of daily visitors. Here are the benefits traffic brings to a website:
- As our audience grows, we’ll be able to more easily gather a large number of CPUs for parallel simulations.
- The site could become a broadcasting platform for new ideas in physics (including those of Jean-Pierre Petit). This site will be a space of freedom for thought in physics and astrophysics—a viable alternative to spread our ideas about the universe. Most of the time, overly progressive or unconventional ideas cannot be communicated within the academic framework. Ideas that are “too far outside the mainstream” may find an audience on www.universe-at-home.com.
- The universe-at-home site could attract new programmers and computer scientists, thus accelerating the development of new simulation projects. Moreover, a large number of new programmers would speed up the progress of existing projects.
- Eventually, secure funding for the project.
How can we increase the number of visitors to a site? To generate traffic, a website needs interesting, regularly updated content. Over time, a site rich in content eventually becomes popular and becomes a reference for the online community. The more a site is linked to other sites, the more likely it is to receive traffic from search engines and affiliated sites. We can set as our goal to surpass seti@home in search engine rankings. Especially, we could aim to beat websites dedicated to Stephen Hawking and his loyal band of thinking sheep in Google rankings. Imagine: someone types “Stephen Hawking” into Google and gets search results. Our site appears first, followed by other pro-black-hole, pro-dark-matter sites! This might disturb many people, especially those in academia and those who control research funding allocations. Of course, this is a long-term, ambitious goal. With consistency and patience, I believe it’s achievable. If we work together in a coordinated way (using the phpBB forum), we could achieve truly impressive results. I’ll add further instructions to the phpBB in the coming days.
Why create www.universe-at-home.com? Doesn’t Jean-Pierre Petit’s site do exactly the same thing? No way! What I offer is a php bulletin board, project management, my programming skills, new ideas, and disk space for downloads. I offer a space where people with ideas can freely express themselves.
Any organization with a single hierarchical level—Gouroux-Fidèle style—resembles a cult. When the Gouroux dies, all the faithful become lost, and the cult dissolves into oblivion. If you want our project to endure, we must decentralize influence, power, and available information. Jean-Pierre Petit is a great man, but he can’t do everything. Of course, he knows very little about modern computing or managing complex projects like this one. This site can give a voice to new leaders and new thinkers who carry fresh ideas, compatible or not with Jean-Pierre Petit’s philosophy.
I say this openly: if Jean-Pierre Petit opposes my initiative, this will not stop me! I’ll take it as additional motivation to...