PHYS114 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Roche Limit

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Physics
• Course: PHYS114
• Professor: Meldrum

Document Summary

Making astrological simulations like the one used to predict the milky way and andromeda"s eventually collision requires complex calculations and powerful computers. Think about it, to make accurate predictions and the such you have to consider the gravitational pull of trillions of stars and planets, know how they"ll interact with each other, and know how long all this will take. To do this for 200 billion stars is a monumental undertaking, and one that could only be achieved using computers. It"s also important to recognize that the efficacy of a given simulation is wholly dependent on the accuracy of the information you put in . Another thing that you have to consider when making a simulation is the timestep . No simulation will make continuous measurements and predictions, because that would involve infinitely small timesteps, which isn"t very practical. As result, you have to decide what timesteps will be used for your simulation.