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NASA Achieves Breakthrough Black Hole Simulation
DoctorBit writes "NASA scientists have achieved a breakthrough in simulating the merging of two same-size non-spinning black holes based on a new translation of Einstein's general relativity equations. The scientists accomplished the feat by using some brand-new tensor calculus translations on the Linux-running, 10,240 Itanium processor SGI Altix Columbia supercomputer. These are reportedly the largest astrophysical calculations ever performed on a NASA supercomputer. According to NASA's Chief Scientist, "Now when we observe a black hole merger with LIGO or LISA, we can test Einstein's theory and see whether or not he was right.""
And even more likely: Whether or not the computers performed the calculations correctly (the chips are made from Intel, and we all know the history of Intel screwing up floating point math)
What is the actual outcome from this research?
more knowledge about the universe and how it might work.
Will this help create more energy-efficiency in the world?
maybe, who can say what future developments and understanding of this area of physics will bring.
Will it help us find technology that humanity can actually use to make a better society?
maybe, see above. it depends on the definition of "better".
when general relativity was first thought of in 1915 there was no application, for the average person. today GPS relies on general relativity.
Will it increase our safety, or decrease power of madmen and dictators?
the obvious answer is probably not. and while these are important questions, this one is not topical in this discussion.
--meh--
How about making science progress by testing a part of one of the most important theory in physics? It's not my funding, however I'd love my country to invest more in science even if only for the sake of science. We're in an era where everything has to be justified by money, it feels like the Dark Age of information. I'm waiting for the next era where new thoughts, science and knowledge progress get some value back.
Call me utopist if you want, but finding something that "increase our safety, or decrease power of madmen and dictators" gets the #1 naive award (always thinking big shields and weapons, what a world).
You use his theories to construct and run a model, and then you compare the results of that model to what you can observe in the sky. The differences between what is observable and what the model indicates are where the new knowledge is, even if things don't match up.