Andrew Coppin <orp### [at] btinternetcom> wrote:
> This is turning out to be *much* harder than I thought... Currently, the
> ball approaches on of the magnets, accelerates to implausibly heigh speed,
> and then ends up so far away from the magnets that is just demonstrates
> Newton's 1st - it travels in a straight line forever. Bum!

  The closer you get to a physically correct model, the more
real-life problems you will encounter.
  Orbits caused by gravitational or magnetic forces are very very
unstable. Even the slightest difference in a stable orbit can make it
unstable and the orbiting object will most probably be ejected away 
(unless you have modelled object collision as well, and the orbiting object
happens to fall into the other object :) ).

  (So how come the planets and moons in our solar system are in so nice
stable orbits? Because from the millions and millions of objects very long
time ago floating around the forming Sun, these particular objects happened
to be, by chance, in the right places at the right times and survived. All
the other objects either collided with these or were ejected from the solar
system.)

-- 
#macro N(D)#if(D>99)cylinder{M()#local D=div(D,104);M().5,2pigment{rgb M()}}
N(D)#end#end#macro M()<mod(D,13)-6mod(div(D,13)8)-3,10>#end blob{
N(11117333955)N(4254934330)N(3900569407)N(7382340)N(3358)N(970)}//  - Warp -

Post a reply to this message