What is behind Einstein's turbulences? Calculations give initial insight into relativistic properties of this process
Wednesday, April 3, 2013 - 15:30
in Physics & Chemistry
(Phys.org) —The American Nobel Prize Laureate for Physics Richard Feynman once described turbulence as "the most important unsolved problem of classical physics", because a description of the phenomenon from first principles does not exist. This is still regarded as one of the six most important problems in mathematics today. David Radice and Luciano Rezzolla from the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute/AEI) in Potsdam have now taken a major step toward solving this problem: For the first time, a new computer code has provided relativistic calculations that give scientists a better understanding of turbulent processes in regimes that can be found in astrophysical phenomena.