Simulating the simulator.  Master of the machine.

 

Have you ever beheld the sky on a starry night?  Out there, across a vast stretch of empty space, cosmic things are happening.  If you keep reading, I'll tell you about some of the strange things you've been looking at, but never really seen.

My name is Nathan W. C. Leigh, and I am a Research Fellow at the American Museum of Natural History.  I study gravity, chaos and various sub-fields within astrophysics.  My research emphasizes creative problem-solving and the development of mathematical models to describe complex astrophysical systems.  These models are then tested by direct application to empirical data and/or computer simulations.  I work extensively with observations from the Hubble Space Telescope and other observational facilities.  I also develop and work with computer simulations designed to study systems of particles evolving due to gravity.  My goal is to overcome the limitations of modern computers using pretty much anything I can think of.

 
 
Interaction between a single star and a binary star system (Hut P., Bahcall J. N. 1983, ApJ, 268, 319).

Interaction between a single star and a binary star system (Hut P., Bahcall J. N. 1983, ApJ, 268, 319).

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