About me, who I am, what I do

Details, everything anyone could want to know about me

My Resume, who I am, what I've done

Photo Album, what I look like, what some of my friends look like

Really cool math:

Logistic Equation and the picture on the right

The Three Body Problem, a menage a trois in physics

Chaos, and a pretty picture

Everyone knows about gravity. It's cool. It's what keeps us from flying up in the middle of the night and hitting our heads on the ceiling and waking up. We also know that gravity is what keeps satelites in orbit and the moon in orbit, and the earth in orbit. It also stops the galaxy from flying apart at the seams.

Basically, gravity is the force of attraction between any two bodies.

Mathematically, if you let M1 be the mass of one of the bodies and M2 be the mass of the other and R be the distance between them, then the force of gravity, Fg is:

Fg = G * M1 * M2 / R2

If you have a satelite and a planet, the satelite will orbit the planet in an elipse (like a stretched circle). If you have two planets and one satelite, the orbit probably won't be an elipse. It will be more chaotic.

chaos, That confusion or confused mass out of which the universe was created; a confused mixture of parts or elements; a scene of extreem confusion; disorder. Websters Encyclopedic Dictionary

Here are some examples I produced with my puny little computer. There are two stationary planets with the same mass on the horizontal line. A satelite is allowed to "fall" between them. The only difference in the simulations was where the satelite started, yet it was enough of a difference to cause the two satelites to crash into different planets.

You want to see the math? You want to make sure you don't ever see the math? I know some of you do! So just let me know.