BlackHoles@Home: Difference between revisions

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== Why BlackHoles@Home? ==

While the two-body problem, which governs the motion of two orbiting point masses bound by gravity, can be solved on the back of an envelope in Newtonian physics, in Einsteinian gravity, the closest analogue is two orbiting black holes. Due to the extreme complexity of solving Einstein's equations of gravity, it took 90 years (1915-2005) to compute the motion of two orbiting black ~~holes—a feat that required~~ supercomputers. Unlike Newton's understanding of gravity, Einstein's equations predict that two orbiting black holes will emit gravitational waves. Since this emission saps the orbital energy from the black holes, they will inspiral and merge to form a single, bigger black hole.

While the two-body problem, which governs the motion of two orbiting point masses bound by gravity, can be solved on the back of an envelope in Newtonian physics, in Einsteinian gravity, the closest analogue is two orbiting black holes. Due to the extreme complexity of solving Einstein's equations of gravity, it took 90 years (1915-2005) to compute the motion of two orbiting black holes and the use of supercomputers. Unlike Newton's understanding of gravity, Einstein's equations predict that two orbiting black holes will emit gravitational waves. Since this emission saps the orbital energy from the black holes, they will inspiral and merge to form a single, bigger black hole.

Ten years later, in 2015, the 90-year effort was validated: humanity directly detected gravitational waves for the first time, emitted from the inspiral and merger of two black holes. This Nobel Prize-winning discovery brought the field of solving Einstein's equations on supercomputers into mainstream astronomy, as the observed gravitational waves must be compared with catalogs of supercomputer simulations to extract important information about the black holes. As gravitational wave telescopes become more sensitive, we need to both greatly increase the size of these catalogs and improve the accuracy of the simulations.

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 == Why BlackHoles@Home? ==
-While the two-body problem, which governs the motion of two orbiting point masses bound by gravity, can be solved on the back of an envelope in Newtonian physics, in Einsteinian gravity, the closest analogue is two orbiting black holes. Due to the extreme complexity of solving Einstein's equations of gravity, it took 90 years (1915-2005) to compute the motion of two orbiting black holes—a feat that required supercomputers. Unlike Newton's understanding of gravity, Einstein's equations predict that two orbiting black holes will emit gravitational waves. Since this emission saps the orbital energy from the black holes, they will inspiral and merge to form a single, bigger black hole.
+While the two-body problem, which governs the motion of two orbiting point masses bound by gravity, can be solved on the back of an envelope in Newtonian physics, in Einsteinian gravity, the closest analogue is two orbiting black holes. Due to the extreme complexity of solving Einstein's equations of gravity, it took 90 years (1915-2005) to compute the motion of two orbiting black holes and the use of supercomputers. Unlike Newton's understanding of gravity, Einstein's equations predict that two orbiting black holes will emit gravitational waves. Since this emission saps the orbital energy from the black holes, they will inspiral and merge to form a single, bigger black hole.
 Ten years later, in 2015, the 90-year effort was validated: humanity directly detected gravitational waves for the first time, emitted from the inspiral and merger of two black holes. This Nobel Prize-winning discovery brought the field of solving Einstein's equations on supercomputers into mainstream astronomy, as the observed gravitational waves must be compared with catalogs of supercomputer simulations to extract important information about the black holes. As gravitational wave telescopes become more sensitive, we need to both greatly increase the size of these catalogs and improve the accuracy of the simulations.