List of Interactive Programs/Software/Applets

  • Context: Undergrad 
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Discussion Overview

The discussion focuses on sharing links to interactive programs, software, and applets relevant to physics, mathematics, and engineering. Participants contribute various resources, including visualizations, simulators, and educational tools, while expressing preferences for different types of learning materials.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Homework-related

Main Points Raised

  • One participant suggests creating a common thread for interactive resources, emphasizing the preference for hands-on learning over video lectures.
  • Multiple links to visualizations and simulators are shared, with some being more suitable for upper-division undergraduates and others for high school students.
  • Participants mention specific software tools like MATLAB and Mathematica for finding additional interactive programs.
  • Some resources are noted for their lack of interactivity but still provide valuable visualizations.
  • Several participants share links to YouTube playlists and channels that contain educational visualizations, although the content is described as not always scientifically rigorous.
  • There are mentions of specific projects and websites related to complex analysis, fluid mechanics, and particle physics, highlighting the diversity of topics covered.
  • One participant expresses a desire to move updates to a different platform for better organization, indicating a preference for more editable formats.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally agree on the value of sharing interactive resources, but there is no consensus on the best platform for organizing these links or the effectiveness of different types of learning materials.

Contextual Notes

Some links may lead to outdated or less relevant content, and the effectiveness of resources may vary based on individual learning preferences. The discussion does not resolve which resources are superior or more effective for learning.

Who May Find This Useful

Students, educators, and enthusiasts in physics, mathematics, and engineering who are looking for interactive tools and visualizations to enhance their understanding of complex concepts.

Simfish
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I'll post more with time (by the way, why do threads in this forum get automatically locked with time? Considering how sparsely populated it is, I don't think threads need to be locked). Warning: Don't open these in a browser full of tabs - Java applets apparently *love* to crash modern browsers. Feel free to post some of your own here too - in fact - I think it's a good idea to have a common thread just for the interactive things. Please don't post video lectures in here though - there are other places for that, and some of us learn better by doing rather than by listening.

Visualizations helpful for upper-division undergrads:

http://www.aw-bc.com/ide/

http://www.eftaylor.com/quantum.html

http://www.eftaylor.com/leastaction.html

http://www.jhu.edu/signals/

http://math.rice.edu/~dfield/dfpp.html (not really usable except with conjunction with a course, but amazing when used with conjunction)

http://www.myphysicslab.com/fluid.html

http://www.math.ttu.edu/~pearce/complex/complexviewer.html

http://webphysics.davidson.edu/Applets/Applets.html

http://pirate.shu.edu/~wachsmut/complex/about/index.html

http://www.math.umn.edu/~rogness/multivar/

http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/ (huge number, continually updated)

http://math.fullerton.edu/mathews/numerical.html (though the mathematica code is hard to run). BTW: what happened to the complex analysis modules??

Circuit Simulators

For site discovery, this really helps: http://www.google.com/search?q=related:falstad.com (or just google related:[domain address for any website you really like])

===

Visualizations less helpful for upper-division undergrads (more helpful for HS students):

http://web.mit.edu/8.02t/www/802TEAL3D/

http://physics-animations.com/Physics/English/el.htm

https://people.ifm.liu.se/freka/particleworld/

http://daugerresearch.com/SSS/index.shtml

http://interactagram.com/

http://www.nobelprize.org => lots of applets for each of the prizes, although many of them contain way too little content for the time you put into them

===

Very specific:

http://escher.epfl.ch/symmetry/

===

Computer Science:

http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/mukundan/cgeo/applcgeo.html

http://faculty.msmary.edu/Weiss/weiss/ai.htm

http://fac-staff.seattleu.edu/quinnm/web/education/JavaApplets/

Small (incomplete) neural network tutorial: http://cialab.ee.washington.edu/nn_tutorial/nn_tutorial_1-01.html

===

Applet Collections:

http://www.siue.edu/~lhorner/Links.shtml

http://www.math.harvard.edu/computing/java/links.html

Some more at https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=283568

==

Not interactive, but visualizations are still amazing:

http://www.bores.com/courses/intro/index.htm

Amazing Multivariable Calculus Notes

==

You can also find some more applets if you try to search for terms like "visual + X". Searching for "Visual Quantum Mechanics", for example, will give you several books, some of which have their own programs for quantum

Even then, the applets at the websites above really form only a *very* tiny fraction of all interactive programs. If you really want more programs, you should get MATLAB/Mathematica and search for the m/nb files (many of them are free).

For example, here's Exploring Abstract Algebra with Mathematica: http://www.central.edu/eaam/ (although it only works for older mathematica versions).
 
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Physics news on Phys.org
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http://www.youtube.com/user/Best0fScience
http://www.youtube.com/user/ScienceTV

They don't contain much science that we don't know, but the visualizations are still often quite inspiring. And sometimes make us remember what really inspired us to do science (plus they're good to distribute to the popular audience)

Posting these for the visualizations. There are other science channels+playlists on youtube too

I actually learned from this (for LIDAR, wow):

And wow, I just saw - youtube can be amazing for biology. Or anything that involves 3D visualization/spatial skills.
 
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  • #10
https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~krosenfe/projects.html => nice visuals
 
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  • #12
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  • #13
http://online.redwoods.cc.ca.us/instruct/darnold/deproj/ - Student Projects in Differential Equations

Wow, some of these projects are really complex (but contain excellent visuals)
 
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  • #14
  • #15
http://www.scotese.com/ - "The goal of the PALEOMAP Project is to illustrate the plate tectonic development of the ocean basins and continents, as well as the changing distribution of land and sea during the past 1100 million years."
 
  • #16
http://www.sciencemag.org/site/special/vis2010/index.xhtml

International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge
 
  • #18
http://www.math.uri.edu/~pakula/462web/Websites%20related%20to%20Visual%20Complex%20Analysis.htm

Websites related to "Visual Complex Analysis"
 
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  • #20
  • #22
www.eurekazing.com:[/URL] has interactive/ customizable experimental content
 
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  • #23
http://www.chuacircuits.com/sim.php"
this is a simulator for chua's circuit in 3D, with interactive features so you can manipulate the values. The page has a lot of info actually, including the equations used and the rest of the site has some great videos and pictures.
This simulation is in html5, not java, so it loads really quick, but doesn't work in older browsers.
 
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  • #24
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  • #25
Maybe this is too obvious, but I was surprised to not see it anywhere in the list.
I've always considered this THE interactive physics/science website and have used it since high school:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hph.html"

The explanations are clear, simple and exhaustive. The whole site explains almost all of physics and is organized very logically. It is simply the best for learning/teaching the basics of many physics concepts without having everything dumbed down.
 
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  • #28
Thanks so much for these. I spent an hour-and-half playing with only a handful on them, from you first list. Very educational and engrossing and fun.
 
  • #29
Solving simple DC circuits, series and parallel resistors, Ohm's law

Java applet that solves simple (DC) circuits the way a human being does.

http://networks.orgfree.com

There is also an applet about first Kirchhoff's law.
 
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