Will F@H finish?

[Zarxrax]

Folding@Home has been around for a number of years now, and I was just starting to wonder, is this project something that can be completed, or will it be ongoing for the rest of the foreseeable future? If this project has a finish line, how close are we to reaching it?

[7im]

Most people have vowed to continue folding until every disease has a cure. (...or at least the last 2 people I asked... )

Much progress has been made (see the Results page on the project web site) but much more has yet to be done. No finish line is forseeable as yet.

[socceronly]

Folding@Home has been around for a number of years now, and I was just starting to wonder, is this project something that can be completed, or will it be ongoing for the rest of the foreseeable future? If this project has a finish line, how close are we to reaching it?

I may be talking out the wrong part of my body... but....

I don't think so.

As more computers, and more powerful computers, are added, it will allow the scientists to do more complex things, or things they thought may have been previously impossible.

Will it always be the same? No, but I don't think scientists in any forseeable future are going to run out of things to do on a massive distributing computing environment.

Even if it means doing the same thing better, more accurately, or testing a theory in different ways.

Sure there is a forward march in computing that everyone is aware of. But ask the scientists involved if they thought at some point in the future they would have thousands of 4, 8 or 80 core CPUs or a quarter million game machines crunching away on stuff..... I would be surprised if they made that assumption (or any assumption for that matter).

So the very nature of the project may itself be a continuous evolving thing . I doubt in any way that it is a static entity with a finish line.

[Rebel44]

Most people have vowed to continue folding until every disease has a cure. (...or at least the last 2 people I asked... )

Much progress has been made (see the Results page on the project web site) but much more has yet to be done. No finish line is forseeable as yet.

QFT - even with 10 times more powerfull computers it wouldnt be finished soon because we would be processing more complex simulations...

[endrik]

Add to this an inherent feature of scientific work - that each new answer gives grounds for ten new questions... it's snowballing, you know.
In a graphic example, if you picture our knowledge as a sphere, then as we increase the contents its radius grows by second power, in the same time increasing surface of the sphere (i.e. border with the uknown) by third power.

Of course it is not that bad with FAH, as we are doing rather 'laboratory', not the fundamental research - still I wouldn't be waiting for any definite end to the project. There is really a lot things that can be simulated, anyway

[7up1n3]

God willing, someday we'll solve the riddle of protein mis-folding. Until then, I Fold.

[RexB]

We're in it for the long haul .... I been on 3 teams in 4 years and we just Keep on Truc... er ... Folding

[ruth]

Is it possible to cure diseases that you get from others?
Like those that you infected with

[vraa]

I'm folding until this project is dismantled.
Then I'm doing whatever other distributed computing project exists.

[v00d00]

Is it possible to cure diseases that you can get from others?
Like those that you are infected with.

Probably, one day.

The scientific world is still in its infancy if you look at it in the grand scheme of things. Computers have only been around for a short while in a useful form. Distributed computing even less. But every simulation we run helps scientists understand the bigger picture a little better. With time new solutions will be found which will add up to new drugs and possibilities.