What you know about tides is wrong It could be super cool and interesting to see this in 3D https://twitter.com/mayfer/status/1633601289505632257
Thiiiisss but to demonstrate how the waves can be used for sending signals – (i.e. wiggle electron here, see others wiggle = radio :D), and all sorts of other EM intuition related to relativity (which admittedly I don't have enough of yet...)
Talked with plasma fusion physicist friend at JET and he had the same lack of intuition and 🤯 reaction so I feel validated at least
Take a lattice of masses joined with springs, touch it and waves spread out and bounce around. Easy enough
What happens when you limit the possible energy levels those springs can oscillate at? Previously continuous waves shatter into clumps, these blobs can bounce off each other just like real particles. These quasi-particle things are called phonons and exist as vibrational excitations in real materials! They also have wave functions! Should be a fairly easy simulation to create and shattering behavior is easy to intuit.
Maybe this is also a useful way to understand 'real' particles like electrons?
In QFT: "An electron, for example, is just an excitation of an electron field." (distinct from the electric field, for which photons are the quantized excitation)
The mathematics is the same, but not 100% sure where the limits are of this analogy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (I've not studied QFT yet!) The fact that so many peoples ideas are muddled about this stuff (including mine) I think it's a great signal there's potential to make useful things here!
StackExchange what-is-exactly-a-phonon
Lecture: "Quantum field theory: from phonons to photons"
The ideal toy would be a perfect replica of the moon and earth, where you could literally grab the moon and earth in your hands, bring them close together and watch the oceans rise up under gravity, and maybe try out some orbits by hand to see how you can get this double bulge either side of earth if you carefully keep pace
Some approximation of this might be possible with a particle sim for the ocean and exaggerated proportions to see the tides rising up over terrain. Challenging tho!
https://youtu.be/L9L_gNogNes?t=373 https://www.parkes.atnf.csiro.au/people/sar049/eternal_life/supernova/pulsars.html Pulsars spin around 1 time a second through to 100s times a second, we can turn pulsar spins into sound so you can hear what a million trillion trillion kilograms sounds like rotating so fast the surface get reach a good fraction of the speed of light
Maybe we can show how large stars collapsing toward the end of their lives can cause the whole mass's rotation to speed up because of conservation of angular momentum (velocity is proportional to radius L = mvr)
Plus pulsars simulations can be pretty ^^
I would love to get an intuition for this. Maybe a full relativist electric field simulation (like above) could shed some light?
The explainations make sense, but I want to really get it
Still seems to be some disagreement online here – seems like there's at least a need for a clearer visual!
Veritasium video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TKSfAkWWN0&ab_channel=Veritasium
"Perhaps up to 85% of stars are in binary systems with some in triple or even higher-multiple systems."
https://www.atnf.csiro.au/outreach/education/senior/astrophysics/binary_intro.html
Not sure will come up in the curriculum but has viral potential because it's a surprising lesser-known fact. Needs thorough review however! Not 100% convinced by that 80% figure
To give an intuition that the stars you see at night are very much not as static as they but moving rapidly and interacting with one another in a chaotic dance
https://twitter.com/starstrickenSF/status/1177735703716757505
Real simulation implementation is tricky, could maybe produce a 2D version of the above that's fast enough to play with
Would be great to have a powers of 10 style experience to host other interactive toys
Showing gravitational waves and effect on light
While possible technically and pretty, not sure this is fits curriculum well enough (LIGO project might like it tho)
Particle based, 3D too expensive but could fake it with a 2D galaxy plane. What's the learning aim besides fun smashing galaxies?
- Galactic evolution patterns on the Gyr scale?
- Galactic rotation curve issues? (dark matter vs mond)
To motivate intuition for EM equations (i.e moving charges in magnetic field feel a force). Focus is on something pretty and fun
Maybe using a neutron star like the video?
Game I found made by some students years ago (no idea if it still exists! Cannot find it again): super simple, and very addictive: fight by creating equations on a graph. Amazing for getting an intuition for functions.
Fundamental idea is not to dress up the math, but just make the raw math itself into a game
I still use intuition I gained from playing that for a few hours years ago
Class-wide multiplayer worms / tanks style game – you get the distances to other players and have to work out forces and angles to hit other players
Should have Mario Kart style slingshot balancing so slower players don't get left out!
The focus is on the equations because people have all the intuition they need from real-life here, we just need something to motivate practice and playing with the formulas they need to learn
A simulation trying to give intuition why distant objects are magnifed by the expansion of the universe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37198954