Simulations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Simple lens simulation by MinuteLabs.

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

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

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

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

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 simple gravity simulator for the web. Created by Hermann.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

A slick simulation of particles flying around a black hole. 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.

Electromagnetic wave simulation. Created by Falstad.

Simple light color mixing simulation, by Alex Larioza.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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