Black Hole Launcher
April 11, 2019
With the release of the first picture of a black hole this week – I decided a new project was in order. Gotta jump on the hype train, after all.
The only problem was I thought of this on Monday, and the picture was coming out Wednesday.
It was going to be a rush order.
I already had a fair bit of the tech in order, with my other General Relativistic projects, so it was doable. And indeed it is done — Black Hole Launcher.
I figured I’d boil it all down to just throwing rocks around a black hole. Simple to play around with for a few minutes, or longer if you got really into it. Eventually scope-creep came in (just a bit!) and I added light beams, and a variable mass for the black hole, etc. But it still stayed delightfully minimal. (A new thing I’m striving for in my projects).
So go ahead, give it a try. See if you can get a rock to orbit. Can you detect any precession? How about light beams, can they orbit?
And a quick, more general note on TestTubeGames. Right now, I’m exploring making smaller, quicker projects… so keep an eye on this space for new things. I’ve also built a new Discord server for folks that want to chat a bit more and get an inside scoop, which you can find here.
Thanks for your support!
-Andy