Category Archives: Simulation

Barnes-Hut for N-body force calculations

Posted on June 26, 2011 by ejrh

Seen on Reddit a couple of days ago, a nicely presented article on the Barnes-Hut algorithm.

Posted in Science, Simulation | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Cloth simulation circa 2009

Posted on May 2, 2011 by ejrh

Another salvaged artefact: an old animation of a rectangular cloth draped over an invisible donut-shaped table.

Posted in Simulation | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Fire simulation with FDS

Posted on April 14, 2011 by ejrh

Last November I downloaded something called Fire Dynamics Simulator, which is made by NIST (the US government’s National Institute of Standards and Technology).  If there’s one thing I admire about the United States government, it’s that it actually does useful … Continue reading →

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Galaxy animation from 2010

Posted on March 14, 2011 by ejrh

I’ve been rewriting a gravity simulator (see my earlier posts on ephemerides and relativity).  This isn’t because I’ve thought of a better design or come upon a better technology for it.  It’s because I lost the first version!  I’ve recovered … Continue reading →

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Faking relativity

Posted on March 5, 2011 by ejrh

As you know, the orbit of Mercury about the Sun cannot be explained entirely by Newtonian physics. In an ideal Newtonian system, the orbit of a small body around a larger one is a stationary ellipse. In the case of … Continue reading →

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Ephemerides from JPL Horizons

Posted on February 10, 2011 by ejrh

Ephemeris is a strange word that evokes both scientific and mystical ideas.

Posted in Science, Simulation | Tagged , | 6 Comments