With the new “Acceleration Lab” tab in the Forces and Motion: Basics simulation, students use an acceleration meter and a bucket of water to explore the concepts of speed, acceleration and net force, and learn how they relate to Newton’s Second Law of Motion: F=ma.
With the new Radiating Charge simulation, you can learn how electric field lines from a point charge evolve in time as the charge moves. Watch radiation propagate outward at the speed of light as you wiggle the charge. Stop a moving charge to see bremsstrahlung (braking) radiation. Explore the radiation patterns as the charge moves with sinusoidal, circular, or linear motion. You can move the charge any way you like, as long as you don’t exceed the speed of light.
We’re excited to add another simulation to our growing mathematics collection. With the new Graphing Lines simulation, explore the world of lines. Investigate the relationships between linear equations, slope, and graphs of lines. Challenge yourself in the line game!
If you’re running Java 7, we strongly encourage you update to Java Update 13 (build 1.7.0_13-b20). This latest Java release includes critical security patches and makes running Java in the browser more safe.
Get the upgrade here:
And if you’d like to learn more about the update, read about it here:
Note to Mac Users: to run our 3D simulations, Molecule Shapes or Plate Tectonics, you will still have to downgrade to Java 6 as described in our previous blog.
Have you tried Plate Tectonics or Molecule Shapes, but couldn’t get these sims to run on your computer?
Well, try again! We’ve upgraded both to work on as many platforms as possible. Please note that the simulations use LWJGL for the 3D graphics. Unfortunately, at this time LWJGL does not support Java 7 on Mac OSX. For to run these simulations, it is necessary to downgrade your Java to version 6. To learn how to do this, see
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5559?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
If you’re still having troubles, please let us know so we can ensure that it works for everyone.
Help bring PhET to tablets: Donate to PhET today.
Happy New Year!
And thank you to all those who pledged their support to PhET in 2012. We are looking forward to an exciting 2013 with new simulations as well as making our more popular sims tablet compatible.
Don’t forget to try the HTML5 prototypes at:
Have you received our December 2012 newsletter?
Find links to prototypes of Masses & Springs, Energy Skate Park, Build an Atom, Concentration and Faraday’s Electromagnetic Lab in HTML 5. We’re excited to be offering a sneak peek at our progress. Have fun!
If you didn’t receive the newsletter in your e-mail and want future newsletters, sign up at our website.
Don’t forget PhET this holiday season. Donate to PhET’s Annual Campaign today.
Now through the secure Network for Good.
Thanks Noah and Laura for catching an issue with the new Forces and Motion.
Just a day after we released an update, they quickly e-mailed us regarding the number of significant digits in some of the numerical readouts. PhET Developers Sam Reid, John Blanco and Chris Malley worked together to isolate and solve the problem, posting a fixed version the next day. And, we found that the “bug” also affected three other simulations, all of which have been fixed.
Thanks for reporting problems to phethelp@colorado.edu so we can get things fixed quickly!
Help support PhET developers. Donate to PhET’s Annual Campaign today.
If you’ve recently updated to Mac OS X 10.7 or 10.8, you may have received the message:
“To open this Web Start application, you need to download
the Java Runtime Environment.”
That’s because Apple Java was removed during the latest update. So when you receive this message, click “More Info“, and you will be taken to the java.com website for Version 7 at http://www.java.com/en/download/help/mac_install.xml.
Note: Once you’ve installed Java, you may need to reload or quit your browser in order to enable Java in your browser.
If you’re running Mountain Lion OS X 10.8, Gatekeeper (the new program introduced in OS X 10.8 designed to prevent potentially malicious apps from launching) may block the launch of the PhET sim. To override this, either modify Gatekeeper’s default settings or explicitly right/control-click the application and choose Open.
If you have additional questions, please e-mail phethelp@colorado.edu.
Help support PhET Donate to PhET’s Annual Campaign today.
We’re excited to add another simulation to our Basics series, designed specifically with middle-school students in mind.
With the new Forces and Motion: Basics simulation, explore the forces at work in a tug of war or by pushing a refrigerator, crate, or person. Create an applied force and see how it makes objects move. Change friction and see how it affects the motion of objects.
Help keep new sims coming: Donate to PhET’s Annual Campaign today.
