// ITS FOSS — LINUX & OPEN SOURCE
Every Physics Teacher (And Student) Should Try This Open Source Software
Open source software has always been a cornerstone in scientific applications.
From supercomputers to CERN labs, handling some of the greatest discoveries of humankind and accelerating particles beyond imagination, open source software has provided the framework for all necessary technological usage.
Bringing it down to a simpler level, KDE's Step provides you a platform to test out some of the most important basic concepts in physics, like simple motion, electrostatics and gravitation, and even things like spring (harmonic) motion.
Developing an intuition about these phenomena can finally bridge the knowledge gap that students need. So if you are a physics teacher (or student), KDE Step is worth your attention.
Using the basic KDE design kit, the application looks quite familiar as it is. It is arranged in a very efficient manner, with all the usable objects on a panel on the left side of the window, while the right side holds the panel that can be used to modify any of the attributes of those objects as well as a panel that shows the history of the steps (no pun intended) made by the user. On the top of the window, all the menus are present with the undo/redo buttons, and most importantly, the button that allows you to start the simulation.
To demonstrate the elements and how they're used in the best way possible, I'm going to show different simulations that incorporate said elements. It is the most efficient and vivid way, since it is, after all, a simulation app.
As a very famous quote from Sidney Coleman says, "The career of a young theoretical physicist consists of treating the harmonic oscillator in ever-increasing levels of abstraction." Keeping up with that sentiment, I will show a very basic demonstration of a simple harmonic motion.
The elements used here are two particles, a spring, a graph, weight field and an anchor. Particles in Step are simple zero-dimensional point objects with modifiable position, color, velocity, mass, momentum and kinetic energy.
Springs are simple, you can attach both ends to objects, you can change the stiffness. Anchors are utilities that can be used to fix the position of an object to the scene. No matter what, it will not move from where it is placed.
A weight field simply simulates the gravitational force of earth for all the objects placed on the scene, but again, you can modify the gravitational acceleration to suit whatever kind of simulation you're trying to run (for example, trying to simulate the gravitational force on the moon).