Tag: gravity
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Gravitational slingshots
In my last few posts, I’ve been trying to characterize different potentials through the shapes of their orbits (gravitational, harmonic, lorentz). In the middle of it, I came across a post on bad astronomy about gravitational slingshots. I figured it would be a perfect opportunity to use these images to show the effect in a…
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The best surprises come from unexpected places
This time I’m back with some more physics visualizations with a flat 2d canvas. I’m skipping over some demos of basic physics to get at some orbital mechanics animations that I found surprising. I’ve derived and calculated solutions for two objects gravitationally bound to each other from my freshman physics classes back in college. Then…