We’ve gotten a little bent out of shape over gravitational lensing recently (see here and here). But the fun doesn’t stop: gravitational lensing has now officially come into the 21st Century with the release of Eli Rykoff’s GravLens. (Not to be confused with GRAVLENS, Chuck Keeton’s immensely useful and powerful gravitational lensing modeling software). You can now lens a star, a galaxy, or an image of whatever or whomever you want (e.g., your favorite blogger), right in the comfort and safety of your own palm. GravLens is freely available at the iPhone application store. Go download it, and make yourself a beautiful Einstein Ring. This is your chance to support the fledgling “Physics applications for the iPhone” industry!
Galaxies in your iPhone
July 30th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
This is great Dan – should be particularly useful for helping describe lensing to people who ask about dark matter etc on planes, at parties, …
July 30th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Mark, yes it’s perfect for that! Lensing is a totally visual phenomena. It’s hard to really get it across with words/equations. Or even still images. Interactive lensing applications are the way to go.
July 30th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
I’m waiting for the PDG to be available as an iPhone app!