Having kids play with the Binary Black Hole explorer made by Vijay Varma, Leo Stein, and Davide Gerosa

Last night I saw an incredible tweet thanks:

Have you ever fantasized about simulating binary black holes on your computer? Who hasn't? We made the next best thing:https://t.co/eGYbfocf2J. This example demonstrates the superkick; the final black hole flies away at 1/100 the speed of light! pic.twitter.com/fB2XDpaWYb

— Vijay Varma (@vijay_x_varma) November 19, 2018

Here’s the link in the tweet just in case WordPress doesn’t display everything properly:

The binary black hole explorer

The link goes to the “Binary black hole explorer” made by Vijay Varma, Leo Stein, and Davide Gerosa, and it is one of the most amazing computer visualizations I’ve ever seen!

Even though the math and physics going in in the background is way way way too advanced for kids, I thought it would be fun to hear them describe what they were seeing. Imagine having the opportunity to see simulations of rotating black holes when you were in 7th and 9th grade!!

My younger son went first:

My older son went next – we’ve just finished up the section in his calculus book on parametric equations and polar coordinates, so I thought he’d find these simulations to be especially interesting:

I loved showing these simulations to the boys. Even if they can’t totally understand what’s going on, it sure is a nice peek at what can come down the road if they find physics to be interesting.

And, as always, it is so fantastic to see scientists sharing amazing work like this on twitter!