Re: "particle" sliding along a curve
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg70550] Re: "particle" sliding along a curve
- From: Jean-Marc Gulliet <jeanmarc.gulliet at gmail.com>
- Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2006 03:22:40 -0400 (EDT)
- Organization: The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
- References: <eh4pd9$8j8$1@smc.vnet.net>
Mattiephly at hotmail.com wrote: > Hi there. I'd like to create a Mathematica plot that displays a > "particle" -- which will just be a small, black circle -- "sliding" > along a curve. That is, when I execute the Plot command, I'd like to > watch as the particle moves along the curve from one point to another. > I've looked at the help documents for the built in Animation abilities, > but I'm not sure how to make use of them. Do I really have to create a > single plot for several positions of the particle, and then animate > those consecutively? Yes: this is how animations are built with Mathematica. > For example, I'd like my particle to slide along the parabola y = x^2, > and I'd like the particle to "slide" from x = -5 to 5 (though maybe > show the curve from x = -10 to 10). And I'd like to be able to control > the "speed" of the particle, too. > > I appreciate any thoughts on this. An excellent source of inspiration is David Park's "Elastic Collision of Two Balls Along a Line" notebook, freely available on his web site at http://home.earthlink.net/~djmp/Mathematica.html (the link to the notebook is roughly half way of the page, under the title "Elastic Collision Animation") Regards, Jean-Marc