Illustris computer simulation simulates entire universe from near the Big Bang to tod

[Manwë Súlimo]

[rwatts]

On a Nature podcast, I heard one of the researchers talking about it. He said that if they tried to do this on an ordinary state of the art desktop PC like the ones we have, it would need to run for some 5,000 years.

The podcast is here:-

http://www.nature.com/nature/podcast...014-05-08.html

[Manwë Súlimo]

Well, not the "Entire" universe but just a cube-shaped subsection of it....and the thread cut off the end of "today" in the title.

[HMS_Beagle]

What's really amazing about this is how close the simulation came to matching the real thing.

The real Universe photographed by the Hubble telescope is on the left. On the right is what emerges from the simulation.



Here is a good BBC write up on the work:

Universe evolution recreated in lab

Wow. Just wow.

[Carrikature]

What's really amazing about this is how close the simulation came to matching the real thing.

The real Universe photographed by the Hubble telescope is on the left. On the right is what emerges from the simulation.



Here is a good BBC write up on the work:

Universe evolution recreated in lab

Wow. Just wow.

Is 'close' intended to portray how well it matches our universe, or just the general idea of how the universe appears? If the former, it doesn't look terribly close to me (though I admittedly don't know how other simulations have fared). If the latter, I don't understand what is so amazing.