THE CROWD AND THE COSMOS

fascinating Brian CoxThis is the story of citizen science Where once astronomers sat at the controls of giant telescopes in remote locations praying for clear skies now they have no need to budge from their desks as data arrives in their inbox And what they receive is overwhelming projects now being built provide more data in a few nights than in the whole of humanity s history of observing the Universe It s not just astronomy either dealing with this deluge of data is the major challenge for scientists at CERN and for biologists who use automated cameras to spy on animals in their natural habitats Artificial intelligence is one part of the solution but will it spell the end of human involvement in scientific discovery No argues Chris Lintott We humans still have unique capabilities to bring to bear our curiosity our capacity for wonder and most importantly our capacity for surprise It seems that humans and computers working together do better than computers can on their own But with so much scientific data you need a lot of scientists a crowd in fact Lintott found such a crowd in the Zooniverse the web based project that allows hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic volunteers to contribute to science In this book Lintott describes the exci