Simulations

The math of how Thai fireflies time themselves. Created by Nicky Case.

An interactive explorable about the physics behind gears. Created by Bartosz Ciechanowski.

Scrollable explorer where you can see what’s in the deep ocean, the deeper you go. By Neal.fun.

Pixel based simulation of life, where each color represents a type of cell for the organism. Over time organisms evolve in their virtual environment. Created by Max Robinson.

Fly through the universe near the speed of light, and experience the relativistic effects of length contraction and time dilation. Can you make it to Andromeda in one raptor’s lifetime? Built by TestTubeGames.

A simulated swing, with some tools for exploring the physics behind pumping your legs. Created by TestTubeGames.

Excellent web simulator for optics, with a wide range of lenses, mirrors, prisms, and other objects you can add. Created by Yi-Ting Tu.

Investigating molecules bouncing around in a piston in various states of matter. Good thermodynamics simulations by PhET.

Some interesting simulations about how eyes work to see the world. Created by Ala’, Andrew, Jason, Peter, and Tanya.

Have you ever wanted to evolve mold? Here, you can evolve mold. Recently updated! Created by ery tau.

A simple gravity simulator for the web. Created by Hermann.

What is a day, actually? Part video, part simulation, all interesting. Created by Jasper Palfree.

A simulation of falling sand and so much more, a surprising amount of physics built into this toy. Created by the R74n Collective.

Fascinating simulator that gives you a lot of power to change the rules of the world, adding in various forces, rules, and objects. Can create some interesting things. Built by lisyarus.

Fun toy that lets you play with a Reaction Diffusion System, a simulation that easily makes interesting patterns and has a connection to how biological systems grow. Created by pmeila.

Cool look at gravity of many, many bodies, calculated on a mesh. Looks neat, too. Created by Ricky Reusser.

Simple simulation: draw an iceberg, and see how it will float in the water. Inspired by the idea that icebergs are often drawn incorrectly. Made by joshdata.

An easy-to-use rocket simulator. See if you can build a ship that can make it to space, the moon, or further. Now see if you can do it safely. Free demo versions available on certain platforms.

Basically lets you recreate The Game of Life, but with emoji and any rules you’d like to put in. Created by Nicky Case.

An interactive blog post about waves, their shapes, adding them together, and harmonics.

App that lets you explore a tesseract, built by Lunar Skydiving.

Have you ever wanted to walk backward into a black hole? Fly through a wormhole? Now’s your chance in this relativistic simulation. Based on the setup in the movie Interstellar, and created by sirXemic.

Crawling stick figure creatures evolve before your eyes. Created by TestTubeGames.

A look at the quantum mechanics behind Bell’s Inequality, using a casino as an example. Built as a long blog post with many interactives along the way. Created by Adam Becker.

Electromagnetic wave simulation. Created by Falstad.

Draw the bones and muscles for your stick-figure creatures, and evolve them into better racers. Built by Keiwando.

Basic and easy-to-use simulation for light curving around a black hole. Created by Thomas Müller.

A slick simulation of particles flying around a black hole. Created by Ricky Reusser.

Fling planets and change physics in this gravity sandbox. Available in browser and for download. Created by TestTubeGames.

Simple tool for exploring the night sky at different wavelengths of light. Built by Lowe, Simpson, and North.

Simple lens simulation by MinuteLabs.

Simulate solar eclipses, even on other planets and with other moons. Created by MinuteLabs.

A simulation of the spacetime around a Schwarzschild black hole where you can fling astroids and light to your heart’s content. Created by TestTubeGames.

Particles bouncing around in a box, with lots of options for changing the setup. Includes thermodynamic quantities, too. Built by Falstad.

Particle simulation that is great for exploring thermodynamics, or Newtonian mechanics, gas laws, etc. Created by Dan Schroeder.

An interactive book about geology and earth science, available for iPad and Mac. Created by Chaim Gingold.

Investigate systems that interact, such as the predator-prey population dynamics and much, much more. Created by Nicky Case.

Simple light color mixing simulation, by Alex Larioza.

An interactive video that lets you explore the math and patterns of virus structures. Created by Hamish Todd.

Downloadable space simulation that lets you smash planets together in a really cool way. Created by Giant Army.

Build tons of 2D physics simulations with this free resource. Easy to check out, tons of cool stuff you can do with it. Created by Dimitris Xanthopoulos.

See a globe of earth, but back in history, millions of years ago. Watch the techtonic plates move, and see where in Pangaea your house was.

Easy-to-use simulator for modeling electric fields around point charges. Created by Ithaca College.

Evolution simulator where little creatures swim around and evolve. A deep amount of complexity. Created by Léo Caussan.

An evolution simulator heavily based in biology, built by Revolutionary Game Studio.

A beautiful simulation of a fluid that’s quite fun to play with. Mesmorizing… Built by Pavel Dobryakov.

An evolving creature simulator where the creature are boxes stuck together into piles. Built by Evol Games.

Evolving creature simulator where the creatures are basically 3D sets of boxes. Built by Evol Games.

A customizable toy of a double pendulum. Created by MinuteLabs.

Cool phone app that can turn your device into a physics sensor, measuring things like sound, acceleration, light, etc. Created by Vieyra Software.

Scroll down the page and explore what energies match what masses, according to the famous equation E=mc^2. Created by MinuteLabs.

Fascinating simulation where you can add and move objects in 4 dimensions. On mobile or pc, and created by mtb design works.