Physics – Computer Educational Programs 1.0 & Technology

Physics – Computer Educational Programs is a package of small applications designed to present basic physics issues in junior high school, secondary school, technical school and other school institutions. One key advantage of the project is interactivity – computer simulations enable easier and deeper comprehension of individual areas of physics. Not only are the programs appealing to students but teachers searching for innovative teaching aids may find this resource valuable as well.

Components of the Physics-Computer Educational Programs package:

• Uniformly Accelerated Motion – is an accessible simulation of motion with constant acceleration and an initial velocity. Data are displayed visually as animations or distance/speed versus time graphs.
• Oblique Throw – the program displays an oblique throw for any given initial velocity and throw angle settings, enabling us to view its trajectory, distance, maximum height and instantaneous parameters of velocity vector. We can check range, maximum height and instantaneous parameters.
• Work Done by Variable Force – this program illustrates how to calculate work done by variable forces, as well as introduces integral calculus concepts.
• Central Collisions – Monitoring the outcome of two balls moving along a line connecting their centers colliding.
• 2D elastic collisions – observations of two balls colliding based on their collision coefficient, relative velocity and mass ratio parameters.
• Free Vibrations – Animation and graphs depicting the vibrational response of a system with given properties such as mass, elasticity coefficient and amplitude.
• Damped vibrations – Similar to its predecessor, Damped Vibrations allows users to simulate damped or creeping motion based on input data.
• Composition of Wave Movements – the program calculates parameters of waves with different characteristics to compose them into waves with various characteristics.
• Doppler Effect – Our simulation allows us to become acquainted with the specific characteristics of Doppler effects in various cases of proximity or separation between source and receiver.
• Maxwell’s Velocity Distribution – this program enables users to observe how velocity distribution varies with temperature on a graph.
• Diffusion in Gases – an animation showing the process by which molecules move towards areas with lower concentration, producing spontaneous movement towards less dense areas.
• Electrostatics – is an intuitive application designed to calculate electric potential and field lines within an electronic charge system.
• Characterization of charge in magnetic fields – we can understand how various properties of fields affect its movement of charge.
• RLC Series Circuit – simulation of an RLC circuit given specific input conditions such as frequency and resistance values.
• Lenses – an illustration demonstrating the fundamental issue in optics: lenses have various parameters such as focal length, position, distance from object and type that define them.
• Light Interference – this tool enables users to observe the result of interference between two coherent light waves, created when passing one plane light wave through a diaphragm with two point slits.
• Diffraction with One Slit – the program simulates the results of light waves diffraction for specific parameters (wavelength, distance from screen and width of slits).
• 2-slit Diffraction – the results of simultaneous diffraction and interference between light waves during a two-slit experiment are observed here.
• Black Body– This program illustrates the relationship between temperature and the emission capacity of a black body.
• Radioactive Decay Simulation Tool – this tool simulates radioactive decay of an element with a particular half-life and draws its graph and course.

Each component of the package is handled differently – but its core principles remain consistent. The main menu contains buttons for starting, pausing or continuing simulation, clearing graph and closing the application; remaining options, charts and animations can be found in the lower part of window; modules provide great discussion of presented issues (help -> program description); this window offers detailed theoretical description, helpful formulae as well as tips on critical and interesting cases.

All elements in the set are licensed under Creative Commons, making them free to use for non-commercial purposes. Applications don’t require installation on operating systems and take up minimal disk space on hard drives – plus they run fine even on old computers!

Attention!

We may download a complete package containing all of these applications if we are only interested in some components.

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