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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.""
From the article: "when two massive black holes merge, all of space jiggles like a bowl of Jell-O"
Wouldn't Kraft Foods have prior art on this?
"Itanium chips actually get used"
The catastrophic results of merging Microsoft and Linux?
The hilarious results of merging Intel and AMD.
The unexpected results of merging a spinning Steve Jobs (Intel is Evil/Intel is the best, brightest, future of Apple) and the O'Reilly No-Spin Zone.
Those I'd buy tickets for.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
What kind of framerate do you get on that machine when playing Half-Life 2?
"Rotating black holes are thought to be formed in the gravitational collapse of a massive rotating star or from the collapse of a collection of stars with an average non-zero angular momentum. Most stars rotate and therefore it is expected that most black holes in nature are rotating black holes." Rotating black hole - Wikipedia
English is easier said than done.
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)
Not mentioned in the article of course, is that shortly after the simulation, the software collapsed in on itself as it underwent a Massive Total Existence Failure.
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
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--
According to theory, the event horizon of a black hole that is not spinning is spherical, and its singularity is (informally speaking) a single point. If the black hole carries angular momentum (inherited from a star that is spinning at the time of its collapse), it begins to drag space-time surrounding the event horizon in an effect known as frame-dragging. This spinning area surrounding the event horizon is called the ergosphere and has an ellipsoidal shape. Since the ergosphere is located outside the event horizon, objects can exist within the ergosphere without falling into the hole. However, because space-time itself is moving in the ergosphere, it is impossible for objects to remain in a fixed position. Objects grazing the ergosphere could in some circumstances be catapulted outwards at great speed, extracting energy (and angular momentum) from the hole, hence the name ergosphere ("sphere of work") because it is capable of doing work. Once all the angular momentum is extracted from a spinning black hole, what do you think happens, it stops spinning.
And I whole heartily encourage all patent and IP lawyers to go to those black holes and ether Subpoena them or deliver a notice of possible infringement.
This should solve all lot of problem here on earth as well, if we can get them to all go.
Unless that is the Black hole decides to show up for its court date.