This orbit simulator is an interactive, exploratory tool which can be used like a laboratory experiment. Students should be able to observe/discover various laws of physics in this simulation.
The usage of the application is fairly self-explanatory. Instructions are displayed in the upper-right hand corner. Upon starting the application, the user can adjust parameters such as mass, position, and velocity.
Then the user can start the simulation. The simulation can be paused at any time to collect data (which is displayed in the upper-left hand corner). The user can also reset the simulation and adjust the parameters again.
The following phenomena can easily be observed in this simulation:
- Total energy (KE + GPE) is conserved
- Kepler's Laws
- Orbits are elliptical or hyperbolic depending on whether total energy is negative or postive, respectively
- Angular momentum (the cross product of position and momentum) is conserved
- Period^2 is proportional to Radius^3
Systems with three or more bodies are chaotic (hard to predict far into the future). These simulations result in pretty pictures, but don't have as much educational value.
