The simulation they ran sounds really impressive:<p>To find out exactly how these supermassive black holes came to be, Di Matteo, Croft and Carnegie Mellon post-doctoral researcher Nishikanta Khandai created the largest cosmological simulation to date. Called MassiveBlack, the simulation focused on recreating the first billion years after the Big Bang.<p>"This simulation is truly gigantic. It's the largest in terms of the level of physics and the actual volume. We did that because we were interested in looking at rare things in the universe, like the first black holes. Because they are so rare, you need to search over a large volume of space," Di Matteo said.<p>They began by running the simulation under conditions set under the standard model of cosmology — the accepted theories and laws of modern day physics governing the formation and growth of the universe.<p>"We didn't put anything crazy in. There's no magic physics, no extra stuff. It's the same physics that forms galaxies in simulations of the later universe," Croft said.<p>"But magically, these early quasars, just as had been observed, appear. We didn't know they were going to show up. It was amazing to measure their masses and go 'Wow! These are the exact right size and show up exactly at the right point in time.' It's a success story for the modern theory of cosmology."
<i>This enabled them to easily pan across the simulated universe as it formed and move back and forth through time as necessary. They could then zoom in on events that looked interesting, viewing them in greater detail than could be seen using a telescope.</i><p>Your task for the day: prove we aren't living in somebody's simulated universe.