Simulations

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

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 simple gravity simulator for the web. Created by Hermann.

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.

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.

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

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

Have you ever wanted to evolve mold? Here, you can evolve mold. Created by erytau.

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.

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

Turn your phone into a physics lab. Graph things like acceleration, pressure, and magnetic field. Very powerful stuff. Created by RWTH Aachen University.

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

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

Simple light color mixing simulation, by Alex Larioza.

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

Electromagnetic wave simulation. Created by Falstad.

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

Blog post about Entropy, full of interactive simulations. Written clearly and understandably, also with sheep. Created by Aatish Bhatia.

Simulation for investigating waves and interference, with a bunch of customizable physics options. Created by Falstad.

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

Long blog post about the physics behind bicycles. Full of interactives, and very cleanly done. Covers an absurd amount of mechanics. Created by Bartosz Ciechanowski.

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.

A nice interactive look at three-body orbits that repeat. Created by Ricky Reusser.

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

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

Nice tool for easily creating and testing simple circuits, built by PhET.

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

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

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.

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

An explorable explanation of the orbits around a spinning black hole. Created by Dr. Leo Stein.

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

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

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.

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

A to-scale model of the solar system in a browser window. Created by Josh Worth.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Very cool 3D astronomical simulations, running right in the browser. Created by Darrell Huffman.