VIGOR: Virtual Interaction with Gravitational Waves to Observe Relativity

In the next few years, astronomers and physicists expect to directly discover “gravitational waves”, a strange phenomenon predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity. These waves are ripples in space and time that actually stretch and squeeze objects as they pass through them. Gravitational waves are very un-intuitive and mysterious because our bodies are not sensitive enough to detect them.

Our idea is to develop a hands-on interactive game that allows players to develop intuitive understanding of Gravitational Waves. There have been a number of successful learning games that deal with gravity, including many asteroid and planet-landing games, but to our knowledge none exist dealing with gravitational waves.

My role is to develop a scene in Unity that consists of a Binary black-hole system orbiting  around each other at a given orbiting speed and duration. The current concept that we are working on is simulating stretch and squeeze effects of gravitational waves radiated by the black holes on a human body.The amount of stretch and angle of polarization and other parameters are designed to be scientifically accurate. I’m using C# scripting to perform the calculations and to make the black holes orbit around each other.

This scene is to developed for creating a Virtual Reality Environment using Unity and Oculus Rift integration.

Members: Thulasi S.V.

Faculty: Dr. Midori Kitagawa, Dr. Michael Kesden, & Dr. Roger Malina

Tablet and PC versions: