Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/07/29/simulations-of-black-holes-eat.html
…
2 Likes
Thanks Rob for a science’y morning!
8 Likes
If I’ve learned anything from Gleick’s Chaos, those two black holes could circle each other for a long time before they touch.
4 Likes
Well I learned nothing from these simulations. What do the colors represent? Would we expect… different colors? What?
2 Likes
I took from the simulations that the black holes are fabulous.
8 Likes
When those black holes merge, is that what’s generating the signals we’re just now able to detect, ala LIGO?
2 Likes
It’s Friday, so my mind went here:
“…black holes eating one another”
Black hole 69?
3 Likes
Yes.
The reason why the black holes spiral closer instead of infinitely spinning around each other is due to the system radiating gravitational waves and losing energy in the process. When the two masses stop, a ton of energy gets dissipated out into space as gravitational radiation as well.
8 Likes
Despite my wimpy math skills, at the very least I know that to be an understatement of shocking proportions. I run BOINC and have it calculating for the LIGO project, among others, so it’s amazing to see this previously all-theory idea come to fruition.
4 Likes
“I’ll show you my event horizon if you show me yours.”
5 Likes
I have it on my phone my computers not on often or long enough to make it worth while.
1 Like
4 Likes
Where I used to run it all the time and everywhere I could, I stopped doing that a few years back for various reasons. I now run it regularly on a small backup server at home, and rarely to never on my local computer, but it still is a premise and process I enjoyed. Ideally I want to setup a solar-powered BOINC system, but that’s yet to come together.
To my amazement and chagrin, the small network of computers running at-the-time WinNT at the USAF freight terminal at Kuwait International Airport (KWI) was running BOINC up to 2010, last I checked–I may or may not have set that up, sorry Captain–but hey, how much of that security hole is on me, and how much is on the IT staff not looking into a small network of USAF computers STILL running WinNT? I was last there circa '97? '98? 
4 Likes
So check if they’ve noticed it, if not quake server?
2 Likes
Sorry mods, OT:
HA! I never bothered with that at KWI as the machines couldn’t cope and 1) the Captain looked askance at anything non-spreadsheet, 2) I wasn’t in the office enough to play, most times, but mostly, 3) the LT was a cold white xtian evangelist jackass that I couldn’t stand, but he stayed in the office all the time due to heat and his constantly being underfoot on the flightline. Good Christ he was a useless son of a bitch.
Me: Hey LT, please move to the building.
LT: Why? What’s wrong with me being here?
Me: That jet needs to taxi through here and we’re waiting on you (left unsaid: you fucking fucking fucking moron how do you not hear or see that godamn huge cargo aircraft coming this way you unkempt, noisy little waste of good oxygen!!!)
Black hole question: At some point in the merging of two black holes, I would think there might come a moment when a particle is suspended between the two event horizons. What happens then? Ripped asunder, down to gluons or whatevs?
Are gravitational waves the only result of such a merger? Any other particles or waves? If it happened at the center of our galaxy, could we expect the Gravitational of All Gravitational Waves to crush or otherwise disturb the planet?
Also, if that’s the case, can we NOT remake Armageddon’s sopping oatmeal-mushy and scientifically-ludicrous movie about that event?
5 Likes
Guessing if the black holes are surrounded by dust a violent event like a merger would probably lead to large amounts of light x rays etc thrown out.
3 Likes
See, I already knew that. Give me more!
1 Like
I’ll try to bake some expectation of that event into my individual atoms as I don’t think any larger part of me will be around at that point.
3 Likes
“What actually transpires beneath the veil of an event horizon? Decent people shouldn’t think too much about that.”
-Academician Prokhor Zharahav
6 Likes
