[HN Gopher] Cosmological galaxy formation simulation software
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Cosmological galaxy formation simulation software
Author : krpl
Score : 31 points
Date : 2023-11-13 17:08 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tng-project.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tng-project.org)
| comment_ran wrote:
| Maybe it's naive for me. Every time we talk about a simulation,
| we got an accurate model and we have some model validation to run
| our model. The next big question is, okay, what can we do with
| those models? If we can do CFD simulations, we can use that tools
| to build fast car, to build efficient SpaceX rocket to reduce the
| cost, but in terms of this cosmology galaxy formation, what can
| we do with this model?
|
| One simple idea for me is to, okay, is there any significant
| difference from a large-scale model with at the galax scale and
| the model we have, let's say, simulating a von Karman vertices
| because both of them are showing very similar structure. Yes,
| that's an idea of comparison.
| mturk wrote:
| The answer to your first question is more philosophical, and I
| think outside the scope of what I am able to reply to here.
|
| But for the second, I think while there are similarities, the
| details are awfully important for galaxy formation simulations.
| That being said, there _have_ been comparisons between large
| scale structure and things like slime molds [1], but beyond
| techniques we do not expect identicality to the level of
| precision that is the current state of the art.
|
| [1] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ab700c
| observationist wrote:
| With anything cosmological, what we can do is make predictions,
| and find interesting things the universe does when our
| predictions fail. Those failures often cascade back into
| practical outcomes here on earth.
|
| Think of generations of scientists observing orbits,
| painstakingly recording their measurements by hand, building
| books of tables, until finally someone was able to put it all
| together into a comprehensive theory that gave us the ability
| to predict the effects of gravity.
|
| If we build what's supposed to be a valid model of a galaxy,
| but we look out and a galaxy we see violates what we expect, we
| have an interesting place to explore.
| brnt wrote:
| The model in question is physics laws and values for parameters
| therein, including evolving parameters. The purpose of running
| the simulation is to produce a state that matches cosmological
| observations: e.g. are stars indeed forming galaxies, are those
| galaxies distributed as we see (like the films in a foam)? The
| simulation thus (in)validates basic assumptions of the model.
| The model in turn can generate features that can be clues to
| what to look for in cosmological observations: are planets for
| more proliferated than we've seen so far and should we really
| spend money on the MostBiggestTelescope to observe them? Even
| better: can we derive the parameters for the telescope that can
| definitively confirm or rule out their existence? If we found
| good agreement on parameters, what does the early universe look
| like in the model? The future universe?
|
| Tons of basic science, in short.
| ganzuul wrote:
| Would the empty regions be like that end of cause and effect
| which is predicted for an expanding universe?
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