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Interactive Physics simulation software with Wolfram Language?

Posted 9 years ago

Good morning,

I'm a French physics and chemistry teacher looking for a replacement to the aging Interactive Physics simulation software. I'd like to know if Mathematica is the way to go.

Typically, I'd use it to model systems subjected to dynamic forces such as projectiles, orbiting masses, mechanic oscillators... Along with the simulation showing the movements, data would be collected and/or graphs displayed.

For example :

enter image description here

Is it easy to model the gravity field surrounding a planet ? Will I have to solve the satellite's movement equations and program the animation or will Mathematica do that for me ?

If in your opinion Mathematica isn't what I'm looking for, please let me know if you heard about something that would better suit my needs.

Thank you,

Ch'Prof

POSTED BY: Ch' Prof
10 Replies

Hello again, I highly recommend giving the students tools and the freedom to code and visualize simple to intermediate problems whether in Mathematica or System Modeler. My opinion is that Mathematica is preferable because the skills are transferable to other career and recreational skills. Plus, it will give the students access to other things such as big data, etc.

I agree with Patrik, there are many people to help you get started. I am giving a week master course in problem solving at EPFL in late July. I'll teach some mathematica skills, show how to solve and visualize a few problems, and then challenge students to solve their own. The class is for Materials Science PhD students. You would be welcome to join. If you wish to join, please contact me offline.

W. Craig Carter

POSTED BY: W. Craig Carter
POSTED BY: Patrik Ekenberg
POSTED BY: Bianca Eifert
Posted 9 years ago

I was inclined to think that SystemModeler would be better for me, as I wouldn't have to write as much code as with Mathematica, and I would automatically get a visual rendition of my models.

Am I wrong ?

POSTED BY: Ch' Prof

Are you sure you need SystemModeler for this? I've never used SystemModeler personally, but I'd expect Mathematica to be the easier route for this type of a problem... (Mostly judging by the sheer number of really cool Demonstrations Project submissions.)

As for your specific questions, you may want to create a new thread for them and tag it as a question related to SystemModeler so that the right people will see it and answer.

POSTED BY: Bianca Eifert
Posted 9 years ago
POSTED BY: Ch' Prof

As an educator you should be aware of a huge library (more than 10,000 submissions) of such applications available at the Wolfram Demonstration Project. For example, specifically for orbital motion you can search for three-body or look, say, for Astronomy category. Wolfram Language code and Mathematica notebooks are free to download and be adopted to your own purposes.

enter image description here

POSTED BY: Sam Carrettie
Posted 9 years ago
POSTED BY: Ch' Prof
POSTED BY: W. Craig Carter

You will have to set up some equations, and then Mathematica can (numerically/analytically) solve them for you, and with the built in (List)ParametricPlot you will be able to plot those.

It just depends how much effort you want to put in to it. Within half an hour you should be able to make something that shows the trajectories of a system of masses.

Of course there is no built-in function that does exactly what you want, but with the wide variety of high-level functions it should be <20 lines of code I would estimate (depending on the complexity of course you look for of course).

To be honest, I would not know another piece of software that is as customisable as Mathematica and that is as easy as Mathematica. So Yes, go for Mathematica.

POSTED BY: Sander Huisman
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