A blog of Python-related topics and code.
An article by Oliver and Soundararajan that has got a lot of attention in the last few days notes that there is a curious pattern in the distribution of the final digits of consecutive prime numbers. Prime numbers larger than 5 must end in 1, …
Just a quick selection of images randomly-generated by the following 10 lines or so of Python.
The diamond-square algorithm is a popular method for generating images which resemble terrain, clouds or plasma. Its description on Wikipedia is as good as any and will not be repeated here. In the code below, the image size is . Since plt.imshow interpolates quite well …
Spoiler: I don't know and nor does anyone else. One of the predictions that some people have made about the effect of global warming is the increase in frequency and intensity of severe weather events such as tornadoes. Unfortunately, the analysis of records of such …
A simple model of a forest fire is defined as a two-dimensional cellular automaton on a grid of cells which take one of three states: empty, occupied by a tree, or burning. The automaton evolves according to the following rules which are executed simultaneously for …
The Wilberforce Pendulum is a mass suspended on a helical spring which is free to move up and down as well as to rotate as the spring coils and uncoils with its extension. You can see one in action below.
Matplotlib provides a function, streamplot, to create a plot of streamlines representing a vector field. The following program displays a representation of the electric field vector resulting from a multipole arrangement of charges. The multipole is selected as a power of 2 on the command …
Foraminifera are a phylum of mostly marine protists which produce a shell or "test" in the form of a series of linked chambers. One approach to modelling the morphology of foraminifera shells [Tyszka and Topa, Paleobiology 31(3), 522 (2005)] in two dimensions treats the chambers …
The Lorenz system of coupled, ordinary, first-order differential equations have chaotic solutions for certain parameter values , and and initial conditions, , and . The following program plots the Lorenz attractor (the values of , and as a parametric function of time) on a Matplotlib …
A simple model of a polymer in solution treats its monomer units as totally uncorrelated in position (each monomer unit adopts a random orientation with respect to all the others): this is the random flight model. In the following code, a random flight polymer with …
