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?

Already being done

[plutorodinium]

PluraProcessing has a cloud computing platform like the idea in this article. Customers pay Plura to perform computations and Plura outsources the computations to the browsers that are visiting its affiliate's websites. This is an interesting way to monetize the Web. Would you rather view ads or rent off some of your CPU / memory?

Bitcoins, Obviously

[Yeknomaguh]

Bitcoins could then have the credibility they deserve! [Citation needed]