If you always wanted to simulate various experiments from the physics laboratory right on your computer, then your dream has come true in the form of a small software called “The Powder Toy”. It is a comprehensive simulation environment for a wide range of physical processes. Using this small application, we can combine many different materials together and made to react in the program environment. The increase in temperature, the flight of particles, or changes in pressure are realistically simulated.
The program is very small in size and yet offers thousands of simulations from its tiny interface. The way we can use it to run simulations is by downloading them off the internet. These simulations can be saved for later offline use on the local hard drive.
We begin by clicking on the small open button to find and open the simulations. This shows us a gallery of thousands of simulations. We can scroll down in the gallery of simulations and select the one that we find interesting. There are all sorts of simulations such as nuclear reactor, bridges, rockets, planets and more.
Finally we can click on the small play/pause button to run the simulation. When the simulation is running, the pause button turns dark. The simulation may be interactive and you can use your mouse to trigger some events. For example, in a bridge simulation, you can start the simulation using the trigger for final event.
There are many interesting simulations that show particle physics in great detail. One of such simulations is the simulation of the solar flares. It shows how the nuclear reaction activity near the surface of the Sun causes solar flares. The particle physics is displayed very beautifully. You can also see the Earth in the remote and how it is getting the radiation from the Sun.
You can download The Powder Toy from https://powdertoy.co.uk/.