The computer BESK and an early attempt to simulate galactic dynamics

The first N-body simulation of interacting galaxies, even producing spiral arms, was performed by Erik Holmberg in Lund (1941), not with a numerical computer, but by his arrangement of movable light-bulbs and photocells to measure the luminosity at each bulb and thereby estimate the gravitational force. A decade later, and with the arrival of the first programable computers, computations of galactic dynamics were performed, which were later transferred into a N-body simulation movie. I present here the background details for this work with a description of the important elements to note in the movie which may be retrieved at http://ttt.astro.su.se/~po .

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