Friday, November 5, 2010

Gravity is a beautiful abstract Flash simulation -- Time-Waster

Filed under: Fun, Time-Wasters, Education
I know the screenshot doesn't look like much. Wow, a bunch of dots - how exciting is that? But in Gravity, it's not what the dots look like - it's how they move.
You see, each of these little dots is a virtual particle with its own "mass." The larger dots have significantly more mass than the tiny ones - more than just the visual difference. They seem to be about three times as large, but have much more than three times the gravitational pull.
You put a bunch of these particles in different sizes all over the canvas, and watch how they behave. If you do it well enough, they start orbiting each other. You can click and drag to "launch" a particle in some direction, and when it approaches another particle, you'll see them interact according to gravity. This means they don't always collide head-on - often, they both slightly curve and change orbits due to gravitational pull.
The simulation feels very realistic, and thanks to the spartan graphics, it's very fast. Be sure to click the button that says Generate proto disk - it creates a whole structure of particles that collapses on itself by default, but can be manipulated if you plant some large particles next to it.Gravity is a beautiful abstract Flash simulation -- Time-Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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