By Ron Cowen
When black holes collide, they cause surrounding space-time to wiggle, generating a torrent of radiation known as gravitational waves. That’s what Einstein’s general theory of relativity predicts, but computer models have struggled for more than 30 years to reproduce those waves. Because of the relativity theory’s mathematical complexity and the extreme gravity of black holes, modelers hadn’t succeeded in getting black holes to crash. Instead, the computer programs did.
Now, two teams independently report that they have successfully simulated the merger of two black holes and the event’s production of gravitational waves.