A Great Year of Perseid Meteors!

I’m back from vacation! And what a time it was up north seeing the Perseid meteor shower this year.  With no Moon and the best dark skies I have had all summer, the shower did not disappoint, with at least 50 per hour and perhaps as many as 80 where I was viewing!  I saw a few great shots on Reddit’s Astronomy sub. I didn’t catch any meteors in my photos, and not for lack of trying.  I am still a rookie astrophotographer, so I had some trouble getting the settings right on my camera, even though I spent two...

Simulating the Universe and Everything in it

You might think simulating the entire Universe is difficult, and it is, but not for the reasons you would think.  The Physics is actually somewhat straightforward.  We know the math behind star formation, Gravity, and fluid dynamics, and throwing in a few other effects is not too bad.   The hard part is finding a computer powerful enough to do the calculations in a reasonable amount of time. Think about it.  Imagine having a universe of 100 Billion ‘particles’ used for a simulation.  Each particle has a starting point, and that it pretty easy to do.  But then for every...