This demo consists of two levels. The first will allow you to experience the bending of light near a black hole, known as gravitational lensing. (Known issue: Objects in front of the black hole are incorrectly lensed as if they were behind the black hole.)

The second will allow you to explore the different orbits that one can produce near a spinning black hole. You are free to choose your own orbital parameters, and the game will numerically calculate the orbit in accordance with Einstein's Theory of General Relativity.

These parameters are:

Spin (a): The spin of the primary black hole. 0 --> No spin. 1 --> Maximum allowed spin.

Size (p). The average size of the orbit (in geometrized units).

Eccentricity (e): How elliptical the orbit is. 0 --> Circular. 0.8 --> Highly elliptical.

Inclination (\theta_{inc}): The inclination of the orbit w.r.t to the central black hole (in radians). 0 --> Polar obit. 1.57 ~ pi/2 --> Equatorial orbit

Each level also allows you to change to one of four backgrounds:

Milky Way

Purple Galaxy

Green Galaxy

Pink Nebula

This virtual reality experience was created by PhD students Philip Lynch and Josh Mathews under the supervision of Dr. Niels Warburton. We area all part of the Relativity Group at University College Dublin, and we created this app to help communicate our research into black holes and gravitational waves. To learn more about what we do, see our website: maths.ucd.ie/relativity

This demo is still still in the early stages of development. We plan to add more levels, more explanatory text, and a "story" mode to walk people through the history of our understanding of gravity from Sir Issac Newton to the cutting edge of gravitational physics today.

We are researchers by trade and not game developers. As such, we are looking for feedback from you, the VR community. We want to know what things you would like to see and how to make the UI more intuitive and easy to use.

We'll be updating frequently, so keep an eye out for future updates.