Friday, March 29, 2024
Contact    |    RSS icon Twitter icon Facebook icon  
Unexplained Mysteries
You are viewing: Home > News > Space & Astronomy > News story
Welcome Guest ( Login or Register )  
All ▾
Search Submit

Space & Astronomy

Scientists 'play God' by creating a universe

By T.K. Randall
January 1, 2015 · Comment icon 18 comments

The Eagle simulation shows the formation of the stars and galaxies. Image Credit: NASA/ESA/ESO
Two of the world's most powerful supercomputers have been used to build a simulation of the cosmos.
Astrophysicists have attempted to build simulations of the universe before with varying degrees of success, but none of these can compare to the sheer scale of the latest computational challenge undertaken by scientists at two universities in England and France.

Designed to realistically reproduce the processes involved in the formation of the entire cosmos, the Eagle ( Evolution and Assembly of Galaxies and their Environments ) simulation is the most advanced and accurate of its kind ever developed.
"The universe generated by the computer is just like the real thing," said Professor Richard Bower of the University of Durham. "There are galaxies everywhere, with all the shapes, sizes and colours I've seen with the world's largest telescopes. It is incredible."

It took two supercomputers several months to run the simulation software which covers the entire history of the universe all the way back to the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago.

Source: Sky News | Comments (18)




Other news and articles
Recent comments on this story
Comment icon #9 Posted by sam_comm 9 years ago
As I understand it, this simulation and all the others till date are based on the (very) limited part of the cosmos that we are aware of from our vantage point that is Earth. So it's an extrapolation of that which we presumably know, assuming the cosmos and the laws of physics are the same everywhere in the Universe. For all we know that me not be the case at all, and physicists are the first to admit it.
Comment icon #10 Posted by Peter B 9 years ago
Reminds me of a proposed exam question for people who could write quickly... What is a universe? Describe it in detail. Provide at least two examples.
Comment icon #11 Posted by schizoid78 9 years ago
I read part of a book about black holes a few months ago, and the writer said candidly : "most astrophysicists are wrong most of the time, except Stephen Hawking, who pretends to be right all of the time!" Come on, we know about nothing about space, or even galaxy. Personally I have never agreed about this big boom theory, which is all mathematics, but anyone having played with mathematics knows how mathematical models are flawed. Schizo
Comment icon #12 Posted by bison 9 years ago
I read part of a book about black holes a few months ago, and the writer said candidly : "most astrophysicists are wrong most of the time, except Stephen Hawking, who pretends to be right all of the time!" Come on, we know about nothing about space, or even galaxy. Personally I have never agreed about this big boom theory, which is all mathematics, but anyone having played with mathematics knows how mathematical models are flawed. Schizo Stephen Hawking does not pretend to be right all of the time. He once held that nothing entering the domain of a black hole could ever escape. He later realiz... [More]
Comment icon #13 Posted by danielost 9 years ago
Stephen Hawking does not pretend to be right all of the time. He once held that nothing entering the domain of a black hole could ever escape. He later realized, and admitted that under certain conditions this was not so; that energy could leak away from a black hole, and that it could, in this way, eventually 'evaporate'. Science is based on our current best understanding of the universe. It is intended that this understanding will improve over time, with the acquisition of new and better information. In this way, old ideas will be discarded, and new ones taken up. This has happened before, r... [More]
Comment icon #14 Posted by bison 9 years ago
Science is not a religion, it has no infallible truth revealed from on high. If someone has a deion of the universe with as good, or better explanatory and predictive power as the Big Bang, they are welcome to present it, and would doubtless eventually receive a hearing. If this were not the case, we would still believe a number of things that are not so, such as the Earth being at the center of the solar system, heavy objects falling faster than light ones, and the rarity of extrasolar planets.
Comment icon #15 Posted by Chortle 9 years ago
Clearly nobody involved has read anything by dreyfus or heidegger.
Comment icon #16 Posted by Mikolaj 9 years ago
Clearly nobody involved has read anything by dreyfus or heidegger. What they proposed? Can you introduce to us their works?
Comment icon #17 Posted by Dark_Grey 9 years ago
I would love to see the hardware they are using to recreate the Universe lol
Comment icon #18 Posted by SpiritWalker7 9 years ago
I would love to see the simulated universe once they're done. It would be pretty neat if it could predict yet unknown objects in space by calculations on what's already there.


Please Login or Register to post a comment.


Our new book is out now!
Book cover

The Unexplained Mysteries
Book of Weird News

 AVAILABLE NOW 

Take a walk on the weird side with this compilation of some of the weirdest stories ever to grace the pages of a newspaper.

Click here to learn more

We need your help!
Patreon logo

Support us on Patreon

 BONUS CONTENT 

For less than the cost of a cup of coffee, you can gain access to a wide range of exclusive perks including our popular 'Lost Ghost Stories' series.

Click here to learn more

Top 10 trending mysteries
Recent news and articles