Simulations

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.

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.

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

Scroll up on this webpage and take yourself higher and higher, exploring “What’s up there?” with fun cartoony graphics. Created by neal.fun.

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

Simple light color mixing simulation, by Alex Larioza.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Web based oscilloscope, with a variety of settings to explore, among them the ability to use your microphone to input the wave pattern. Created by Neil Thapen.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Simple lens simulation by MinuteLabs.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Surprisingly powerful tool for creating circuits and seeing their behavior, created by Falstad.

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

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

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

Electromagnetic wave simulation. Created by Falstad.

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

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

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

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