Simulations

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Simple light color mixing simulation, by Alex Larioza.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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