what does folding at home actually do?

[Tom_nerd]

I get that its simulating protein dynamics but has the Folding At Home (FAH) actually achieved anything for scientists. I ask because I have been folding for 6 months now basically non-stop on my 1660 TI and was wondering if I have actually done anything apart from gain some points and bragging rights. 

 

thanks in advance,

Tom.

[jj9987]

From recent news

 

https://www.networkworld.com/article/3587388/foldinghome-exascale-supercomputer-finds-potential-targets-for-covid-19-cure.html
https://hothardware.com/news/foldinghome-volunteers-targets-covid-19-cure-identified

[mariushm]

In a very basic way ... uses your computer to do some computations and whatever results are most worth looking at are sent to actual people/scientists/doctors for further investigation .. and with luck, something good comes out of it.

 

A problem could be something like  "we have these chemical elements , which elements and in what amount of each element should we use to produce some energy (heat, fire) "  and your computer receives a set of parameters (use only elements a,b, c, d, e from periodic table, and mix at least 100 and at most 1000 from each element)  and your computer starts simulating various combinations and measures how powerful the chemical reaction is, but each simulation can take seconds. With over 100 of chemical elements and various amounts for each element it would take more than a lifetime to try them all, so that's why you distribute the work and give each pc a subset of chemical elements and then further narrow down the amount for those elements so that that "job" can be done within a reasonable amount of time and you get results back and assign a new job. 

Some combinations may be more powerful than what's already known, and those results are sent for further investigation ... could be a simulation error, could be something good, you never know