Could Wikipedia Become a Supercomputer?

An anonymous reader writes "Large websites represent an enormous resource of untapped computational power. This short post explains how a large website like Wikipedia could give a tremendous contribution to science, by harnessing the computational power of its readers' CPUs and help solve difficult computational problems." It's an interesting thought experiment, at least — if such a system were practical to implement, what kind of problems would you want it chugging away at?

Maybe, but

[Mikkeles]

Only if bitten by a radiaoactive calculator!

coins

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikipedia could use that computing power to harvest bitcoins so that they'll never have to beg for money again. It's a brilliant plan.

Wikipedia supercomputer stalls

[paiute]

Sure, it would come up with a solution pretty quickly, but then that solution would get edited, then the edit would be attacked by the supercomputer's moderating subroutine, then there would be a flame war on the discussion page occupying a large percentage of the total cycles. Then the solution would be locked and you couldn't see it or see a graph of it because there was no graph of it in the public domain.

Q: Could wikipedia become a supercomputer?

[Rogerborg]

A: Yes.

Q: Will wikipedia become a supercomputer?
A: It turns out that there are stupid questions.

Hamster wheels!

[neokushan]

I have a better idea!
Instead of resorting to nuclear power, think of the untapped resource of the common household hamster!
All those wheels, spinning and turning - all that energy going to waste! Every hamster owning house should have a miniature turbine inside it, powered by the hamster. Think of the energy it'll generate! Why, after only a year, your single solitary hamster will probably have generated enough power to power a lightbulb for a few minutes! Assuming your hamster lives that long.