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.""

Comments

Wasted funding?

[dada21]

I thought NASA was having financial difficulties and no real direction in where they'll "lead" us in the future. This seems like an terrible waste of taxpayer dollars.

What is the actual outcome from this research? Will this help create more energy-efficiency in the world? Will it help us find technology that humanity can actually use to make a better society? Will it increase our safety, or decrease power of madmen and dictators?

Stories like this make me feel sad that many people feel we need public funding for research that seems to have no real gain for those paying for it. Sure, I love physics and astrophysics, but I would rather voluntarily give a few hundred greenbacks a year to a private research company that see it wasted on publicans who get paid no matter what they're doing.

Re:Wasted funding?

[mapkinase]

more knowledge about the universe and how it might work.

Nope. You have to do real experiments to get that.

maybe, who can say what future developments and understanding of this area of physics will bring.

key word is "understanding". Understanding is impossible without normal scientific cycle which includes hypothesis, theory and experiment. There is no experiment here.

today GPS relies on general relativity.

Right, if by "relies" you mean 1e-7s correction.

the obvious answer is probably not. and while these are important questions, this one is not topical in this discussion.

Correct. 1 out of 4.

Microsoft invented this already, called it Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

But it just sucks in your Money, Time, along with you Patience and/or Hair.

They've even figured out how to predict where the 'other end' will show up. They've got the Money showing up in Redmond WA( One Microsoft Way ). They don't care about the other things getting sucked into their MS BlackHole so they're sending that to the polar ice caps. With the huge number of "features" tied into/onto/around Windows, a massive increase in excess Time and Patience is getting consumed by the wildlife up there and it's killing the Polar Bears. They've go so much time on their hands/paws, they're going to long long swims in the open ocean and end up drowning from exhaustion.

Recently, they've been able to get MS BlackHole to suck in your Personal Data but they lost control of the "other end" and that stuff is randomly popping up in the hands of identity theives. To their great pleasure I might add.

NASA's got nothing on those incredible minds up at Microsoft.

I am wondering...

[julienbh]

if that breakthrough is a come-back from USA to scare Iran. QUOTE "The United States and Britain say that if Iran does not comply with the Security Council's April 28 deadline for Tehran to stop [Uranium] enrichment, they will seek a resolution making the demand compulsory (i.e: Destroy strategic emplacements)." Guardian I already imagine a huge black hole over teheran and flying turbans... and cows.

More like...

[turgid]

...5% of all the intanium chips in the world used for a single simulation, and they were given to the customer free, gratis and for nothing because otherwise they'd have bought an Opteron cluster...