4 ms·

I expect so -- at least one of the people on the team is a relativist. Sending her an email now...

by ISL 10y ago

BrendanD 10y ago
Nope: http://universesandbox.com/faq/ http://universesandbox.com/faq/ Does it account for relativity? No, the physics in Universe Sandbox ² is currently only Newtonian. Why? The short answer is that you need a supercomputer to accurately simulate general relativity. Jenn, astrophysicist and Universe Sandbox ² developer, explains more in a blog post: "General relativity requires simulating the spacetime itself. That is, taking your simulation space, discretizing it to a hi-res 3-D grid and checking the effect that each and every point in that grid has on all neighboring points at every timestep. Instead of simulating N number of bodies, you are simulating a huge number of points. You start with some initial data of the shape of your spacetime and then see how it evolves according to the Einstein equations, which are 10 highly non-linear partial differential equations." We are, however, interested in adding in a few features which would address some effects of relativity. One example is setting gravity to travel at the speed of light, instead of instantaneously taking effect as it currently does. You can read more about these in Jenn's blog post: Gravitational Waves & Universe Sandbox ².
- marxidad 10y ago
  Sounds like it would need Minecraft.
- athom 10y ago
  Finite element analysis on the spacetime continuum? Yikes!
- btilly 10y ago
  First and second order corrections are a lot more reasonable to calculate than the whole theory! Furthermore calculating the whole theory runs into interesting challenges where the coordinate system is twisted and and distorted but underlying space-time is not. For a well-known example, a black hole can be described with both Schwarzschild coordinates and Kruskal–Szekeres coordinates. The first coordinate system blows up at the event horizon, the second doesn't. The fact that it blows up is due to a bad choice of coordinate system there, and not due to local space time being particularly bizarre at that spot.
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- yodon 10y ago
  How cool - asking the question "does gravity propagate at the speed of light and if so what impact does that have on orbital dynamics" was the event that led me down the path to my PhD, so it's awesome the answer to the question is now (or soon to be?) baked into a science toy.

I expect so -- at least one of the people on the team is a relativist. Sending her an email now...

by ISL 10y ago

I expect so -- at least one of the people on the team is a relativist. Sending her an email now...

Nope: http://universesandbox.com/faq/ http://universesandbox.com/faq/ Does it account for relativity? No, the physics in Universe Sandbox ² is currently only Newtonian. Why? The short answer is that you need a supercomputer to accurately simulate general relativity. Jenn, astrophysicist and Universe Sandbox ² developer, explains more in a blog post: "General relativity requires simulating the spacetime itself. That is, taking your simulation space, discretizing it to a hi-res 3-D grid and checking the effect that each and every point in that grid has on all neighboring points at every timestep. Instead of simulating N number of bodies, you are simulating a huge number of points. You start with some initial data of the shape of your spacetime and then see how it evolves according to the Einstein equations, which are 10 highly non-linear partial differential equations." We are, however, interested in adding in a few features which would address some effects of relativity. One example is setting gravity to travel at the speed of light, instead of instantaneously taking effect as it currently does. You can read more about these in Jenn's blog post: Gravitational Waves & Universe Sandbox ².

marxidad 10y ago
Sounds like it would need Minecraft.
athom 10y ago
Finite element analysis on the spacetime continuum? Yikes!
btilly 10y ago
First and second order corrections are a lot more reasonable to calculate than the whole theory! Furthermore calculating the whole theory runs into interesting challenges where the coordinate system is twisted and and distorted but underlying space-time is not. For a well-known example, a black hole can be described with both Schwarzschild coordinates and Kruskal–Szekeres coordinates. The first coordinate system blows up at the event horizon, the second doesn't. The fact that it blows up is due to a bad choice of coordinate system there, and not due to local space time being particularly bizarre at that spot.
deleted 10y ago
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deleted 10y ago
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yodon 10y ago
How cool - asking the question "does gravity propagate at the speed of light and if so what impact does that have on orbital dynamics" was the event that led me down the path to my PhD, so it's awesome the answer to the question is now (or soon to be?) baked into a science toy.