4 ms·
Quote: "Particle mass is log of radius". Why not use real physics and make the mass proportional to the cube of the radius? It's also easier to compute. In fact
by lutusp 12y ago
Quote: "Particle mass is log of radius". Why not use real physics and make the mass proportional to the cube of the radius? It's also easier to compute. In fact, taking the log of the radius goes in the wrong direction -- the mass of a planet really does increase as the cube of its radius, which changes in a way opposite to log().
Oh, well. Here's my gravity simulator -- it uses JavaScript, no flash required:
http://arachnoid.com/orbital_dynamics http://arachnoid.com/orbital_dynamics
- Udo 12y ago> "Particle mass is log of radius" They seem to have corrected the sentence now: "particle radius is log of mass". Wow, your simulator is much nicer, plus a great article about it to boot! You should add an option to play cosmic billiard, that's probably the main appeal of the flash simulator :)
- lutusp 12y agoThanks for your kind comments! > They seem to have corrected the sentence now: "particle radius is log of mass". It's still wrong. Here's a graph comparing mass = e^radius (the reciprocal of radius = log(mass) ) versus mass = radius^3: http://i.imgur.com/XkVFgIH.png http://i.imgur.com/XkVFgIH.png My point is that the two functions have a different behavior, the absolute values generated aren't very important compared to that. For solutions to f = G m1 m2 / r^2 where both bodies are computed, this will produce results wildly different than reality. (If only one body is computed, for example against a much larger parent body mass, the satellite mass stops making a difference.) > You should add an option to play cosmic billiard, that's probably the main appeal of the flash simulator :) Nice idea. I was more interested in portraying the solar system using real planetary masses and real physical constants. Still, it's a nice suggestion.