/r/physicsgifs

Photograph via snooOG

GIFs that show physics principles at work in the real world or in a simulation.

About

This subreddit is dedicated to showcasing interesting and entertaining physics principles in work in the real world or in a demonstration.


Rules

  • Submit gifs that show the interesting world of physics. Be it pendulums, crashes, or physical models.

  • Explanations for whatever is happening in the gif would be preferred, but isn't required. If you understand what's happening in the gif, feel free to put an explanation in the comments.

  • Also, please upvote intelligent and informative comments. Don't keep the upvotes soley for puns and references and all of that jazz.

  • Don't post videos.


Filter By Category

Electromagnetism

Thermodynamics

Fluid Dynamics

Light, Waves and Sound

Newtonian Mechanics

Astrophysics and Space

Nuclear Physics

Quantum Mechanics


Symbols, Superscripts and Subscripts

Superscript

  • E = mc2 is written as E = mc^(2)

Subscript

  • vo = vf - (a * t) is written as v*_o_* = v*_f_* - (a * t)

Arrows

  • Equilibrium arrow: ⇌
  • Left Arrow: ←
  • Right arrow: →
  • Left/Right Arrow: ↔
  • Up Arrow: ↑
  • Down Arrow: ↓
  • Up/Down Arrow: ↨

Equality Signs

  • Less Than or Equal To: ≤
  • Greater Than or Equal To: ≥
  • Not Equal: ≠
  • Approximation: ≅

Additional Symbols:

  • Theta: θ
  • Degrees: °
  • Mu: μ
  • Sigma: Σ
  • Delta: Δ
  • Phi: ϕ
  • Omega: ω
  • Alpha: α
  • Pi: π
  • Plus or Minus: ±
  • Integral Sign: ∫
  • Square Root: √

Please use these to help out fellow redditors that haven't studied physics! Live Example.


Other Subreddits

/r/chemicalreactiongifs

/r/biologygifs

/r/spacegifs

/r/oceangifs

/r/physics

/r/space

/r/mathpics

/r/askscience

/r/gif

/r/gifv


/r/physicsgifs

211,182 Subscribers

1,362

Shadow from car door warps toward shadow from my sleeve as they get near each other

65 Comments
2024/02/22
20:19 UTC

123

Double Slit Experiment 3D Visualisation [Made by me in Blender Software]

4 Comments
2024/02/22
05:01 UTC

3,086

External Gear Pump - Cavitation

57 Comments
2024/02/22
02:09 UTC

175

Joules of wisdom (Work Energy and Power)

8 Comments
2024/02/20
16:04 UTC

46

Spring Into Action with Hooke's Law

6 Comments
2024/02/08
14:40 UTC

138

The electromagnetic field from the plasma ball causing a strip light remote to turn the light up as I move my hand close. Neat little (accidental) experiment.

18 Comments
2024/01/28
11:46 UTC

11

Carting around with Work Energy Theorem (InvisiblePoles and Koffeeboy - i made an improved version. Thanks for the feedback)

1 Comment
2024/01/25
12:28 UTC

20

Cart Dynamics: Work-Energy Theorem

7 Comments
2024/01/24
10:34 UTC

167

Slinky Analysis: Square wave -> Triangle wave -> Sinewave

15 Comments
2024/01/23
14:41 UTC

157

Sawtooth Slinky

7 Comments
2024/01/21
10:43 UTC

118

Dynamics of a rocking disk pendulum

13 Comments
2024/01/20
16:06 UTC

74

Jar lid oscillating

4 Comments
2024/01/15
20:55 UTC

62

Working on Roche Limit simulations.

2 Comments
2024/01/13
20:02 UTC

75

Pretty Illustrations of Electron Density Maps in Simple Molecules

H₂

H₂O

CO₂

CH₄

NH₃

Hello, everyone!

I made these animated GIFs of electron densities in some simple molecules. I calculated the density maps with GAMESS, and plotted some shells from them with MacMolPlt. I then represented the different shells with different intensities of blurred white in the GIFs.

I tried to choose the shells reasonably, though it would have been better if I could directly plot the whole map (i.e. as an accurate blurry cloud). I'd have to look for a different software that can do that.

I represented the nuclei with points since they're much smaller than the electronic clouds. I still wanted them visible, so I made the points shine. (I could maybe shrink them a bit more.) I wasn't sure how pronounced the molecular vibrations would be at room temp in proportion their size, so the nuclei are motionless for now. I'm not sure whether GAMESS can simulate the vibrations, didn't look into it in this first run.

The animated jitters / small electric sparks are meant to visualize that the electrons can randomly interact at any of the different locations within the cloud (animated with AfterEffects). The sparks were inspired from the YouTube channel ScienceClic, who once made a similar animation to depict an atom.

I'd love some feedback if you think of things that can be improved. I made them for a future project and thought they were nice, so I wanted to share them, I hope you like them :)

I tried posting this earlier, but the GIFs were too large and didn't render in the post, so I shrunk them. Here's an Imgur Link too just in case.

[Edit] I've also uploaded the GIFs in higher resolution, along with the 3D models (the red plots from the last image, they can be explored e.g. with MacMolPlt). They're downloadable here. If you'd like to use them in your projects, simply pm me :)

Original MacMolPlt Plots

2 Comments
2024/01/09
01:27 UTC

0

What is different between angular and centripetal acceleration?

1 Comment
2024/01/05
10:14 UTC

47

Evanescent wave coupling between two fibers

Hi everyone. This is a simulation I made showing how evanescent waves resulting from the excited mode in a driven fiber can excite the same mode in a nearby fiber.

The two fibers are embedded in a lossy medium to ensure that the source doesn’t excite the second fiber. The second fiber is shorter to give more space between it and the excitation source, and also to show some unperturbed propagation in the first, driven fiber.

This simulation was created using software I wrote myself from scratch, called Maxwell. It is written completely in C, and is quite lightweight and fast. You can visit it at https://github.com/RiScJ/maxwell. If you want to run this example, it’s available at examples/evanescent_fibers.sim.

Please let me know what you think! Or, if you have any ideas for other simulations to run.

2 Comments
2023/12/30
20:29 UTC

104

Slinky standing wave

6 Comments
2023/12/29
00:37 UTC

107

I am the emperor of wasting time

8 Comments
2023/12/28
03:03 UTC

219

can anyone tell me what's goin on here? [original content]

48 Comments
2023/12/27
00:41 UTC

221

I created a simulation of newtonian gravity in python

Hi, I'm an amateur in programming and i created a simulation for a planet revolving around a star using Newton's equations of motion and gravity in python utilising only matplotlib and numpy

It's not perfect (I would say it's not even visually very good) but I'm happy that I was able to create such a model. Hoping to simulate general relativity in the future.

Hope you guys find it as cool as I do.

24 Comments
2023/12/26
01:21 UTC

40

Catapult Launched A-10

6 Comments
2023/12/15
03:38 UTC

0

Nitrogen Element

6 Comments
2023/12/14
17:24 UTC

102

F-4 Catapult Launch

1 Comment
2023/12/14
03:25 UTC

0

Teapot violates physics

My teapot sometimes does it when the water level in the main body stays lower than in the spout and into the tealeaf filter (the metallic insert with tiny holes). The teabag doesn't block the water (it free floats on the surface).

49 Comments
2023/12/12
16:34 UTC

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