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Author Topic: gravity speed exceeding c  (Read 2173 times)

viscious

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gravity speed exceeding c
« on: November 11, 2016, 05:23:07 PM »
during running a simulation i found that the effect of gravity is instantaneous in the program (when i suddenly deleted the sun in the solar system) .. nothing should be able to influence other body over a distance faster than speed of causality ( i.e. c=speed of light)..
Are u modelling the software on purely non-relativistic terms??? If so the gravitational lensing effect of the black holes should not be able to be simulated... Plz clarify...

DiamondMiner10

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Re: gravity speed exceeding c
« Reply #1 on: November 15, 2016, 12:18:10 AM »
I want to delete the sun and have the earth orbit around nothing for 8 more minutes

Only2ndplace

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Re: gravity speed exceeding c
« Reply #2 on: November 15, 2016, 06:51:51 AM »
Yeah, the devs said before, that it's a Newtonian gravity animation and to make it relativistic would require tor rewrite pretty much the entire gravitation algorithm.
Body speeds of more than c are also possible in the animation.
I don't know, how they simulate the gravitational lensing and it's true, that this wouldn't happen in Newtonian physics, but my guess is they just modelled it after optical lensing or a some formulas analougous to general relativity.

Jar

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    • Universe Sandbox
Re: gravity speed exceeding c
« Reply #3 on: November 15, 2016, 03:33:34 PM »
As mentioned, Universe Sandbox ² is a Newtonian, n-body simulation. We're interested, however, in adding some things which would address a few effects of relativity, such as limiting gravity to the speed of light.

You can learn more in this blog post written by Jenn, our astrophysicist: http://universesandbox.com/blog/2016/02/gravitational-waves/

Hope that helps!