5 ms·

Space Engine – The Universe Simulator

112 points by rosstex 6y ago

lloeki 6y ago
This reminded me of the following short story: https://qntm.org/responsibility https://qntm.org/responsibility
- jjbinx007 6y ago
  Very interesting, thanks
- Xophmeister 6y ago
  This bears a lot of similarity to Devs,[1] albeit pre-dating it by 13 years and doing a better job. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devs
  - john2x 6y ago
    Devs is pretty good, also, spoilers :)
  - brodie 6y ago
    I kind of had a similar reaction watching Devs after having read that short story many years ago. But now that I’ve re-read the short story, I have to say, it’s pretty weak compared to Devs. I’m not sure this is the right forum to discuss specifics, so I’ll leave it at that. Though I was very much hoping that Alex Garland’s work on reinterpreting Annihilation would’ve given him the courage to lean into the totally inexplicable in Devs.
    - grey-area 6y ago
      For those who believe thinking or discussing a story is a 'spoiler', don't read on. Both contain the same contradictions: How can a computer calculate everything about the universe or a part of it with any degree of accuracy, without having space to store the information (i.e. having enough bits to store information on every subatomic particle and its state)? If you treat the earth as a closed system say to try to get around this, your simulation is incomplete (e.g. excludes the influence of the sun). An example from the article: this thing could execute an infinite loop in less than ten seconds In what sense could an infinite loop take 10 seconds? In what sense can you brute force the halting problem? An example from devs: The universe is a deterministic system, ergo the future can be predicted with full accuracy with enough inputs. But there are not enough qubits in the universe (which someone evidently told them, because it made it into the script, but is then blithely ignored). https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/8898 https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/8898
dotancohen 6y ago
Seems to be Windows only, unfortunately.
- unixhero 6y ago
  Steam will run it on Linux using Proton. Just enable it in settings.
  - m-p-3 6y ago
    Would be nice if Proton was also available on MacOS.
    - unixhero 6y ago
      That sould fepend on how good Wine itself works on MacosX, which it was not originally built for.
      - escalt 6y ago
        macOS has barely functional OpenGL support and no Vulkan support at all. Most of the value of Proton comes from the DXVK project (aside from Wine itself), which is a D3D->Vulkan wrapper. In theory it could be combined with MoltenVK, which wraps Vulkan to Apples Metal API. Chaining two graphics wrappers like that is probably fairly error prone and the losses in performance are likely too high to make it applicable for video games. Additionally ever since Apple ditched 32 bit support, Wine became kind of useless on Macs since a lot of Windows software (especially older games) is x86 only. The announced move to ARM further decreases chances of Proton ever officially supporting macOS, as emulating x64 would be way to costly to play modern video games.
tarruda 6y ago
For anyone interested in the the topic, I recommend checking out Anton Petrov's youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/whatdamath https://www.youtube.com/c/whatdamath Space Engine is used in many of his videos.
dfilppi 6y ago
Xbox one version would be nice
turblety 6y ago
Looks great and something I'd love. It must have taken a long time to create. Shame it's on Steam. Is there any reason you haven't made this available directly? You could offer both a Steam version that takes a cut of your money, then one on your website that you retain the full payment. Or is that against Steam's laws?
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  Not against Steam's rules at all, but this is extremely common for PC games. Annoys me too. Most players seem to like Steam enough that they don't care.
  - admax88q 6y ago
    Its also just easy to launch on steam, then they handle distribution, updates, payment processing. Steam brings value to the table that if you're okay giving up a significant cut can make your life easy.
jachee 6y ago
Previous discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=spaceengine.org https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=spaceengine.org
wizardforhire 6y ago
Idk how it compares as I don’t have Steam and haven’t tried this out but, afik this looks really similar to Celestia [1] which I do know well and Celestia is Awesome! So if this is a more robust simulator than Celestia I’m down to try it out. [1] https://celestia.space/ https://celestia.space/
- namibj 6y ago
  I tried it years ago, and there was no steam version of it, at that point.
  - garmaine 6y ago
    And.. that’s a negative? You didn’t want it because there wasn’t a steam version available? I think I’ve lost faith in humanity.
sgt101 6y ago
Does this simulate the evolution of planets? Is there a simulator where you could feed in different parameters and see the differences in development?

112 points by rosstex 6y ago

lloeki 6y ago

This reminded me of the following short story: https://qntm.org/responsibility https://qntm.org/responsibility

jjbinx007 6y ago
Very interesting, thanks
Xophmeister 6y ago
This bears a lot of similarity to Devs,[1] albeit pre-dating it by 13 years and doing a better job. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devs
- john2x 6y ago
  Devs is pretty good, also, spoilers :)
- brodie 6y ago
  I kind of had a similar reaction watching Devs after having read that short story many years ago. But now that I’ve re-read the short story, I have to say, it’s pretty weak compared to Devs. I’m not sure this is the right forum to discuss specifics, so I’ll leave it at that. Though I was very much hoping that Alex Garland’s work on reinterpreting Annihilation would’ve given him the courage to lean into the totally inexplicable in Devs.
  - grey-area 6y ago
    For those who believe thinking or discussing a story is a 'spoiler', don't read on. Both contain the same contradictions: How can a computer calculate everything about the universe or a part of it with any degree of accuracy, without having space to store the information (i.e. having enough bits to store information on every subatomic particle and its state)? If you treat the earth as a closed system say to try to get around this, your simulation is incomplete (e.g. excludes the influence of the sun). An example from the article: this thing could execute an infinite loop in less than ten seconds In what sense could an infinite loop take 10 seconds? In what sense can you brute force the halting problem? An example from devs: The universe is a deterministic system, ergo the future can be predicted with full accuracy with enough inputs. But there are not enough qubits in the universe (which someone evidently told them, because it made it into the script, but is then blithely ignored). https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/8898 https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/8898

dotancohen 6y ago

Seems to be Windows only, unfortunately.

unixhero 6y ago
Steam will run it on Linux using Proton. Just enable it in settings.
- m-p-3 6y ago
  Would be nice if Proton was also available on MacOS.
  - unixhero 6y ago
    That sould fepend on how good Wine itself works on MacosX, which it was not originally built for.
    - escalt 6y ago
      macOS has barely functional OpenGL support and no Vulkan support at all. Most of the value of Proton comes from the DXVK project (aside from Wine itself), which is a D3D->Vulkan wrapper. In theory it could be combined with MoltenVK, which wraps Vulkan to Apples Metal API. Chaining two graphics wrappers like that is probably fairly error prone and the losses in performance are likely too high to make it applicable for video games. Additionally ever since Apple ditched 32 bit support, Wine became kind of useless on Macs since a lot of Windows software (especially older games) is x86 only. The announced move to ARM further decreases chances of Proton ever officially supporting macOS, as emulating x64 would be way to costly to play modern video games.

tarruda 6y ago

For anyone interested in the the topic, I recommend checking out Anton Petrov's youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/whatdamath https://www.youtube.com/c/whatdamath Space Engine is used in many of his videos.

dfilppi 6y ago

Xbox one version would be nice

turblety 6y ago

Looks great and something I'd love. It must have taken a long time to create. Shame it's on Steam. Is there any reason you haven't made this available directly? You could offer both a Steam version that takes a cut of your money, then one on your website that you retain the full payment. Or is that against Steam's laws?

Wowfunhappy 6y ago
Not against Steam's rules at all, but this is extremely common for PC games. Annoys me too. Most players seem to like Steam enough that they don't care.
- admax88q 6y ago
  Its also just easy to launch on steam, then they handle distribution, updates, payment processing. Steam brings value to the table that if you're okay giving up a significant cut can make your life easy.

jachee 6y ago

Previous discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=spaceengine.org https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=spaceengine.org

wizardforhire 6y ago

Idk how it compares as I don’t have Steam and haven’t tried this out but, afik this looks really similar to Celestia [1] which I do know well and Celestia is Awesome! So if this is a more robust simulator than Celestia I’m down to try it out. [1] https://celestia.space/ https://celestia.space/

namibj 6y ago
I tried it years ago, and there was no steam version of it, at that point.
- garmaine 6y ago
  And.. that’s a negative? You didn’t want it because there wasn’t a steam version available? I think I’ve lost faith in humanity.

sgt101 6y ago

Does this simulate the evolution of planets? Is there a simulator where you could feed in different parameters and see the differences in development?