Physics - Particle Gravity Simulation - part 1

Simulation and rendering of the gravity fields of 28 particles of equivalent mass in a weightless/vacuum environment (space). Each particle starts with a velocity of zero. Acceleration and subsequent velocity of each particle is due to the gravitational attraction of all of the other particles.

More to come as my particle simulator is improved.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• particlefun
• physics
• particle
• gravity
• field
• mass
• computer
• simulation
• velocity
• acceleration
• gravitational
• attraction

[javier07b9]

what kind of equations using?

[particlefun]

The Inverse Square Law.

f = G ( (m1 m2) / d squared )

[CACBCCCU]

I notice the particles seem to have a radius or at least seem to behave inelastically like ball-bearings upon collisions.

I'm not sure why the illumination level around each particle is not more symmetrical if it's supposed to match gravitational field potentials, there seems to be a bias to illumination pointing away from the center, as if there is some sort of gravitational potential well fixed in the center.

[particlefun]

The intensity of each pixel is determined by calculating the change in velocity of a single point with a mass of one due to the influence of all of the other particles. At the center of mass for the entire system there is little or no acceleration and this creates the "bias" you mention, or darkness.

There are actually no collisions in this calculation, see comments below.

I love thinking about these comments keep them coming.

[circle559]

why are the particles bouncing of each other

[particlefun]

The particles do not actually bounce off one another, they accelerate past each other very quickly. Because of the Inverse-square law the closer two particles are to each other the faster they accelerate toward each other. When two particles come very close together, their relative speed increases exponentially and they fly past each other. If we zoomed in enough on the part of the animation in question, this would be evident.

[Qasimbajwaa]

It would be cool to set all the gravities to the same number and then wait until they line up in a grid

[coldironhands1]

I detected some colisions!

[EngineeringFun]

Very well suited music...

[CACBCCCU]

Thank you. Thinking about it a little more, I might have compared the illumination level's appearance to gravitational potential gradient instead, which is the rate of change of gravitational potential. I was also thinking the contribution of each particle to the local field is strongest on the side away from the center of mass of all the particles. Another thought was that maybe the way the brain's visual system handles contrasts is having an effect on the appearance of things here.

[EngineeringFun]

The not so curved trajectories actually make sense for a low density cloud of particle like this case. And of course computing the field in each point at every moment can increase the simulation time by orders of magnitude.