The N-Body Problem - Jennifer Krack

PHYS 210 PROJECTS -- here

Hey everyone, I would really appreciate some feedback about my idea! Here it is:

I'd like to do an n-body problem but I'm fairly new to programming, so I'm not sure if my ideas are way too hard or way too easy or just right. I was thinking about simulating two galaxies merging, or a cloud passing too close to a galaxy and getting ripped apart or something like that. I would also like to use a language that would produce something beautiful to look at but I'm not sure which ones would be best for this. If anyone has seen the Gravitas animations, I'm thinking something like that but, again, I'm not sure how complicated it would be to create. Please help! Thanks!

A classic example of computational physics, with degrees of sophistication and relevance ranging from screen-saver animations with bogus physics ("swarm") to cutting-edge cosmology and GR calculations. The good news is that there are lots of examples of such applications "out there" on the Web, so you can just download one (or several) and use them. The bad news is that if you just download and use them you haven't done any computational physics yet. You will need to either (a) make your own from scratch or (b) improve upon one of the Open Source versions or (c) find a clever Physics application for same that no one else has thought of. The first step is, of course, to find out what is available and try it [them] out to see which suits your purpose best, or to see what obvious (to you) application no one seems to have implemented yet. By that time you will be having lots of ideas; pick one and run with it. For starters, you might want to check out Stephen Lingemann's P210 Java project from last year. If he agrees to share the sources with you, that could probably be adapted to galactic evolution under gravity [with/without dark matter?]. The possibilities are endless (which is not entirely a good thing). -- Jess 10:22, 4 October 2008 (PDT)