Physics Simulations
Interactive physics simulations you can see, touch, and experiment with. Explore waves, oscillations, and heat right in your browser.
About Physics Simulations
Eleven simulations rather than eleven calculators. Each one draws the thing it is describing and lets you drag it: pull the pendulum bob and let go, drag the wave to change its amplitude, move the blocks in the heat transfer scene and watch the temperatures converge.
They exist because the formula is the easy part. Knowing that a pendulum's period does not depend on the mass of the bob is one thing; changing the mass and watching the period refuse to move is another, and the second one tends to stay. Every simulation shows its live measurements, its formula with real numbers substituted in, and a line about what is happening in the scene.
The physics covers mechanics, oscillations, waves and thermodynamics, at the level a school or first-year course expects. The formula panel doubles as a calculator: type a value into it and the scene follows.
Guides
How the physics calculations work, and where they go wrong.
- Frequency and Period: T = 1 / f
- How a Mass on a Spring Oscillates
- How Forces Work on an Inclined Plane
- How Heat Transfer Reaches Equilibrium
- How Momentum Is Conserved in Collisions
- How Nuclear Reactor Kinetics Works
- How Ohm's Law Works: I = V / R
- How Projectile Motion Works: Range, Height, and Angle
- How the Doppler Effect Works
- How the Ideal Gas Law Works: PV = nRT
- How Wave Speed Works: v = f times lambda
- What Determines a Pendulum Period