Fireworks with Adjustable Acceleration
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Click on the star field below. Adjust the sliders to change the x and y acceleration, then click some more. Try dragging the mouse across the star field.
See notes below...
This Java applet demonstrates projectile motion with no air resistance using various accelerations in the x and y directions.
The slider at the top controls the x acceleration. Pushing it all the way to the left set a high negative acceleration. That is, a large acceleration to the left. Placing the slider in the middle makes the x acceleration zero. And sliding it to the right makes for larger and larger positive x accelerations.
The slider on the right works in a similar manner for the y accelerations. Go to the top of the slider for a large positive, or up, y acceleration, go to the bottom for a large negative y acceleration. Place the slider in the middle for zero y acceleration.
To demonstrate normal projectile motion, set the x acceleration to zero, since gravity does not pull horizontally, and set the y acceleration to some negative value.
To demonstrate motion without gravity, set both x and y accelerations to zero. Of course, you will get fireworks with straight trajectories.
Negative gravity could be simulated with zero x acceleration and a positive y acceleration.
Isaac Newton's laws of motion basically say that accelerations are caused by forces.The direction of the acceleration is in the same direction as the force which is causing it. The acceleration and the force both point in the same direction.
One could, therefore, imagine the sliders to be controlling the direction of the force on the firework. One could think of this as if a wind were blowing and the sliders were controlling the direction of the wind. The firework would be blown back from the wind accordingly.
One could further imagine the above area to be a controllable constant force field through which an identical batch of particles is randomly thrown.