The computer BESK and an early attempt to simulate galactic dynamics
Abstract
The first N-body simulation of interacting galaxies, even producing spiral arms, was performed by Erik Holmberg in Lund (1941), not with a numerical computer, but by his arrangement of movable light-bulbs and photocells to measure the luminosity at each bulb and thereby estimate the gravitational force. A decade later, and with the arrival of the first programable computers, computations of galactic dynamics were performed, which were later transferred into a N-body simulation movie. I present here the background details for this work with a description of the important elements to note in the movie which may be retrieved at http://ttt.astro.su.se/~po .
Cite
@article{arxiv.1503.01795,
title = {The computer BESK and an early attempt to simulate galactic dynamics},
author = {Per Olof Lindblad},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1503.01795},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
Introducing the numerical computation work carried out by Per Olof Lindblad in the 1950s. See also http://ttt.astro.su.se/~po for further documentation and to view the numerical simulation movie