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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.""

6 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. 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.
  3. 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.

  4. 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
  5. 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!

  6. 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.)