Simulates the movement of objects through space. No force other than the gravitational pull of the other bodies is taken into account within this model. The brute force method for implementing an N-body simulation has a runtime complexity of O(N^2), in order to reduce the runtime complexity this simulator makes use of the Barnes-Hut Algorithm. The Barnes-Hut Algorithm, utilizes the divide and conquer programming methodology to recursively break the planets into four groups each stored in a quad-tree. After recurring until every quadrant holds one or zero planets the algorithm can utilize the center of mass and total mass of the nodes within the quad-tree to effectively reduce the runtime complexity to O(NlogN).

To run the app navigate to the N-Body-Simulator directory in the terminal and run the command 'python app.py'.

• Any errors that the application encounters will be printed to the console.

Go view the simulation after starting the app go to http://localhost:5000/simulator.html

• If you renamed the html file you must replace simulator.html in the URL.

• New Bodies

  • To create a new body click.
  • To create a new body with initial velocity click and drag.
  • To set the size of new bodies, use the range slider on the top left of the screen.

• To reset the universe hit the escape key.