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NASA Achieves Breakthrough Black Hole Simulation

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the pretty-pictures dept.

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.""

7 of 281 comments (clear)

  1. Are there non-spinning black holes? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Based on observations, what percentage of black holes are non-spinning vs spinning?

  2. Re:If Einstein had had those supercomputers ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I know it is OT, but although this is a funny comment, I have a friend who just lost his job because he was calling in sick too much for the sake of WoW.

    That game is like crack to many people.

  3. That's new to me. by ErikZ · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Non spinning black holes?

    Is there such a thing?

    --
    Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
  4. A Long HIstory of Calculations by rotenberry · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Scientists has been doing similar calculations for a long time. For example

    Larry Smarr, "Gravitational Radiation from Distant Encounters and Head-On Collisions of Black Holes: The Zero Frequency Limit," Phys. Rev., D15, 2069-2077, 1977.

    I cite this paper because Larry Smarr is one of the Nasa panelists for this project, and I heard his talk on this paper at the University of Texas at Austin in the late 1970s. Come to think of it, I remember seeing one of the other panelists, Joan Centrella, at the same talk.

  5. Equations too complex? by Urban+Garlic · · Score: 5, Interesting

    OK, I'm no general relativist, but I am a computational physicist -- what could the article possibly mean when it says earlier attempts were "plagued by computer crashes -- the equations were far too complex"?

    I can imagine a situation where a poorly-arranged computation of an equation might give you an underflow in an intermediate result, or where a badly-arranged summation might give you noise. But crashing the computer? Sounds more like array-bounds, which can happen no matter how simple the equations are.

    --
    2*3*3*3*3*11*251
  6. Speaking of Relativity by kurbchekt · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This isn't the only testing that NASA is doing of Einstein's theories. For those that are interested, there is also the Gravity Probe-B. Really interesting stuff!

  7. Re:Wasted funding? by TheOtherChimeraTwin · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Sure, and what do we wisely spend money on when we aren't wasting it on NASA?
    • Waterworld - $175,000,000
    • Lethal Weapon 4 - $140,000,000
    • Dante's Peak - $116,000,000
    • Star Wars I: Phantom Menace - $110,000,000
    (Those are production costs.)