59 posts on physics. All posts · RSS feed
An example in Chapter 7 of the scipython book describes the numerical solution of the two-dimensional heat equation for a flat plate with edges held at a fixed temperature. The code below extends this example by considering the solution of the heat equation on the …
As described in the previous blog post charged particle moving in crossed constant magnetic and electric fields exhibits a drift velocity, , perpendicular to both and . The particle's trajectory in this situation can be found analytically. For an arbitrary , some kind of numerical …
A charged particle moving in an electromagnetic field exhibits a "drift" in addition to its gyromotion and any acceleration due to a component of the electric field parallel to the magnetic field. This drift motion has velocity and is therefore known as the drift. In …
The following code illustrates the effect of the initial velocity on the dynamics of an object released in a gravitational field. A very simple numerical integration of the equation of motion gives the trajectory, which is plotted below for four different initial speeds for a …
A charged particle of mass and charge moving with a velocity in an an electric field and a magnetic field is subject to a Lorentz force, , given by The equation of motion for a single particle is therefore given by Newton's second law as …
Two important parameters in plasma physics are the electron Debye length, , a measure of the distance over which charge-screening effects occur and deviations from quasi-neutrality are observed, and the number of paricles in a "Debye cube" (of side length ), . In terms of …
An important concept in plasma physics is the Debye length, which describes the screening of a charge's electrostatic potential due to the net effect of the interactions it undergoes with the other mobile charges (electrons and ions) in the system. It can be shown that, …
In a nuclear fusion reaction two atomic nuclei combine to form a single nucleus of lower total mass, the difference in mass, being released as energy in accordance with . It is this process which powers stars (in our own sun, hydrogen nuclei are fused …
The previous blog post described the motion of a quartic oscillator: a particle moving in the potential . In this case, the motion was always periodic (since the particle's energy is conserved). If the equation of motion includes a friction term and a periodic driving …
A oscillator whose potential energy is given as a function of the displacement, , as may be modelled by finding the numerical solution to the ordinary differential equation In the following, for simplicity we assumethat and (alternatively, we could apply a coordinate transformation to arbitrary …
