Physlets Documentation

Physlets-"Physics applets"-are small, flexible Java applets that can be used in a wide variety of World Wide Web (WWW) applications.

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Description

Packages

physlets

Physlets-"Physics applets"-are small, flexible Java applets that can be used in a wide variety of World Wide Web (WWW) applications.

Physlets-"Physics applets"-are small, flexible Java applets that can be used in a wide variety of World Wide Web (WWW) applications.

The Physlet documentation available here is machine generated by a utility program known as javadoc. Its output is something that only a geek could love. The program extracts every detail about a Java class from the source code and outputs these details using html. In our case, these Java objects are Physlets, Physics Applets.

Javadoc organizes the Physlet documentation using html frames. The left frame displays a table of contents, TOC, listing the Physlet or package for which documentation has been generated. Each TOC entry is hyper-linked to the appropriate file and clicking on this link loads the page into the right frame.

Available Physlets

The following Physlets are available from the Davidson College Physlets site: http://webphysics.davidson.edu/applets/applets.html

• Animator was originally designed for the Animation of geometric shapes and images along predefined trajectories. Recent versions allow objects to move in response to particle interactions as well as external forces.
• BField displays the magnetic field from straight wires or coils using color-coded vectors. External fields can also be specified.
• BlackBody displays the radiation spectrum at different temperatures. The temperature can be changed by dragging the peak of the blackbody curve, by entering the value into a text field, and by scripting.
• Circuits contains a collection of applets designed to model common DC and AC configurations.
  • IVApplet
  • LoadApplet
  • LRCApplet
  • RCApplet
• DataGraph plots data sets and functions. It was designed to record data from other Physlets using real-time inter-applet communication.
• DataTable displays columns of numbers. It too was designed to record data from other Physlets using real-time inter-applet communication.
• Doppler demonstrates the classical and relativistic Doppler effect. It was the first Physlet written.
• EField plots fields produced by a potential function and fixed point charges. Test charges that move under the action of the field can be included in the simulation.
• EnergyEigenvalue calculates the energy spectrum of the Schrödinger equation using the shooting method and displays the wavefunction. Dragging the mouse inside the energy level diagram shows how only certain energy eigenvalues are able to satisfy the boundary conditions.
• EMWave shows a three dimensional display of a traveling wave. The wave can be scripted to model linear as well as circularly polarized light.
• Faraday presents the classic problem of a wire sliding on top of a U shaped conductor embedded in a magnetic field. A galvanometer display shows the current flow as the wire is moved.
• Hydrogenic is a package that consists of three applets designed to display radial wavefunctions, angular wavefunctions, and probability density plots.
  • Angular
  • Density
  • Radial
• Molecular is a package that contains a collection of applets designed to teach kinetic theory. These applets are based on a hard disk model.
  • MolecularApplet
  • MolecularPiston
  • MolecularFlow
  • MolecularMembrane
  • TwoEnsembles
• OpticsApplet models an optics bench with lenses, mirrors, apertures, and sources.
• QTime solves the time evolution of the Schrödinger equation in one dimension. Rather than displaying separate graphs for real and imaginary components of the wavefunction, the amplitude is presented and color-coded to show the phase.
• Poisson solves the boundary value problem for conductors and simple charge-density distributions using the relaxation method. Contour and field plot options are provided.
• Ripple models a water-filled tank containing one or more point-source exciters.
• Superposition creates a multi-panel display containing two time-dependent waves and their sum.
• Sync displays the electric field from a point charge including the time retardation. Common radiation fields such as synchrotron radiation and free-electron laser wigglers are preprogrammed.