Thursday, January 12, 2012

Gravity Sims

Four objects are shown gravitationally interacting.
In physics, we are studying the concepts of universal gravitation--the idea that every object in the universe with mass attracts every other object in the universe with mass. This force is directly proportional to the the product of the two masses involved and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the objects.

Our friends over at PhET have created a really cool gravity simulator graphing application. It can be found here. Head over to the PhET website and spend some time experimenting with the tool. Be sure to manually adjust the settings as well as to try all of the presets.

  1. Which of the presets is the most "complicated" looking?
  2. Which of the presets is your favorite? Why?
  3. Under what conditions does the motion closely resemble circular motion?

Posted by Brian Bearss at 8:09 AM

23 comments:

  1. THE_BIG_BAD_WOLFJanuary 12, 2012 at 10:38 AM

    #1.The double double looks the most complicated because it has 4 bodies orbiting.
    #2.The four star ballet is my favorite because they follow a continuous path and then they collide with each other.
    #3.The sun planet moon most closely resembles circular motion because the sun and the planet always follow a circular path.

    ReplyDelete
  2. useful_idiotJanuary 12, 2012 at 10:42 AM

    1. The double double model is the most complicated because it has the most bodies that revolve around each other in complicated motions.

    2.My favorite is the binary star, planet model because it sucessfully shows moons orbiting larger stars while they orbit each other

    3. under the motion of trojan asteriods closely resemble circular motion

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownJanuary 12, 2012 at 10:48 AM

    The double double is obviously the most complicated as there are four bodies that orbit one another, with the most variables.
    The Four star ballet is my favorite because it seesm to go in a harmionious path until everything goes into mass confuseion and Planets bow up.
    trojan asteriods resembles circular motion most accuratly

    ReplyDelete
  4. Nicki MinajJanuary 12, 2012 at 1:53 PM

    -I agree with all the above that the double double looks most complicating because even before experimenting with anything i seen that there are four bodies that are orbiting one another.

    -The double double is my favorite because the way that the planets orbit each other is really cool looking.

    -The trojan asteroids most closely resembles circulation motion.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ms.Sunshine95January 12, 2012 at 3:44 PM

    1. Double Double

    2. I like the Four Star Ballet because I think it looks really cool

    3. I Think the Sun and Planet most resembles circular motion

    ReplyDelete
  6. ilovesportsJanuary 12, 2012 at 4:21 PM

    1. I also agree with everyone that the Double Double looks the most complicated.

    2. My favorite is the Four Star Ballet because all of the objects are moving in the same direction with the same speed, just starting in different spots. I also like the Sun, Planet, Moon preset because I can actually visualize the sun, planet, and moon moving in that way.

    3. I also think the Sun and Planet resembles circular motion the best.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. useful_idiotJanuary 13, 2012 at 8:27 AM

      i love sports i think your number 2 is slightly off as in the first 30 sec they all have the same direction and speed but after a while one of the planets gets out of orbit and crashes

      Delete
    2. ilovesportsJanuary 14, 2012 at 4:55 PM

      Wow! I did not watch the simulation for very long the first time through. I did not expect anything else to happen besides the four objects to continue to move in their pattern, especially not changing directions and have one of them crash. I am glad that you replied to my comment because now I like Four Star Ballet even better!

      Delete
  7. Lil WayneJanuary 13, 2012 at 9:30 AM

    The preset that i thought was the most copmilcated was the four star ballet. If you let it keep going all the way through the 2 get really close while the other keeps going in a circle.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Yalegirl94January 13, 2012 at 10:57 AM

    -I agree th double double looks most complicated
    -My favorite would be the binary star planet model because it shows the moon while it is orbiting bigger stars.
    -I believe the sun and planet are most resembling to the circular motion the best

    ReplyDelete
  9. iloveweekendsJanuary 13, 2012 at 1:35 PM

    2. my favorite preset was the binary star, planet one, I liked it because a lot of things were going on at once and yet they all seemed tied together.
    3. the one with the most circular motion was the sun and planet one. Even though there were two things moving, they both had a strict circular motion

    ReplyDelete
  10. Lil WayneJanuary 15, 2012 at 11:47 AM

    2) my favorite one is the Trojan asteroids. i like this one because the asteroids just follow eachother as they orbit around. Nothing crazy seems to happen until u let the time keep going and the 4th asteroid gets closer to the sun and then goes way off the page and continues to orbit but in a bigger circle. While this is happening the other 2 just keep orbiting as the were in the beginning.

    ReplyDelete
  11. AnonymousJanuary 15, 2012 at 2:11 PM

    1. the most complicated one is the double double.
    2. my favorite one is the four star ballet because it looks really cool.
    3. the trojan astroids resemble circular motion the most

    mason smeznik

    ReplyDelete
  12. NessJanuary 15, 2012 at 5:15 PM

    1. the most complicated in my opinion is the double double
    2. My favorite one was the double double because it looks really cool and is really intricate.
    3.The sun planet moon resembles circular motion very closely.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Yale13January 15, 2012 at 5:22 PM

    I think the most complicated looking one is the double double. Although unlike "Ness" I would have to say my favorite one is the four star ballet. I really like the design that it makes!

    ReplyDelete
  14. NessJanuary 15, 2012 at 5:29 PM

    As a response to "Yale13" i would just like to say that star ballet was also very nice, however anyone with good taste would have chosen double double as their favorite.

    ReplyDelete
  15. AnonymousJanuary 15, 2012 at 10:16 PM

    i agree with iloveweekends about the sun and planet preset. it does have a strict circular motion.

    mason smeznik

    ReplyDelete
  16. AnonymousJanuary 16, 2012 at 6:33 AM

    My favorite would have to be the double double. Like ness said, it's very intricate and looks the most complicated. The sun and the planet best represent circular motion I believe.

    ReplyDelete
  17. AnonymousJanuary 16, 2012 at 6:35 AM

    The one above is halie Foulks, I forget to attach my name, sorry (:

    ReplyDelete
  18. iloveweekendsJanuary 16, 2012 at 8:41 AM

    1. i agree that the double double looks pretty complicated.
    2. I also liked the elipses one because the three orbits were moving in a circular motion and ended up elapsing, which looks prettty cool.

    ReplyDelete
  19. SuperdubJanuary 16, 2012 at 8:42 AM

    1. I think the double double preset was the most complicated looking of all the presets.
    2. My favorite of the presets was the double double, because it was very complicated and it made an interesting pattern. It shows the complexity of the solar system as a whole.
    3. The Trojan Asteroids preset best portrays the path it would take with centripetal motion. The Ellipses preset shows an orbit. It would depend on what objects you were talking about to fully understand which one was more of a circular motion.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Brian BearssJanuary 16, 2012 at 8:42 AM

    Thanks for all the comments this week!

    ReplyDelete
  21. cody edgertonJanuary 26, 2012 at 6:50 PM

    i also believe the double double looks complicated my favorie waS THE double double because it made crazy patterns and showed the complexity of our solar system

    ReplyDelete

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