I’ve gotta say, one of the cooler nerdy things I’ve seen recently is this black hole simulation. Have you ever wondered what it would be like approaching a black hole? Now you can find out, you know, without dying and stuff! “Using todays high performance graphics hardware, we have developed a Qt application which enables the user to interactively explore the stellar sky in the vicinity of a Schwarzschild black hole. For that, we determine what an observer, who can either move quasistatically around the black hole or follow a timelike radial geodesic, would actually see.” I’ve always wanted to move quasistatically!
If you don’t want to download the application to follow a timelike radial geodesic, there are some movies you can view that will provide you with the experience.
(via Kottke)
Posted in Just Plain Odd, Technology