PhET Blog

With the new Radiating Charge simulation, you can learn how electric field lines from a point charge evolve in time as the charge moves. Watch radiation propagate outward at the speed of light as you wiggle the charge. Stop a moving charge to see bremsstrahlung (braking) radiation. Explore the radiation patterns as the charge moves with sinusoidal, circular, or linear motion. You can move the charge any way you like, as long as you don’t exceed the speed of light.

In our new video, Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman explains how and why he started PhET.

We’re excited to add another simulation to our growing mathematics collection. With the new Graphing Lines simulation, explore the world of lines. Investigate the relationships between linear equations, slope, and graphs of lines. Challenge yourself in the line game!

If you’re running Java 7, we strongly encourage you update to Java Update 13 (build 1.7.0_13-b20). This latest Java release includes critical security patches and makes running Java in the browser more safe.

Get the upgrade here:

http://www.java.com

And if you’d like to learn more about the update, read about it here:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57567412-83/oracle-pushes-out-new-java-update-to-patch-security-holes/

Note to Mac Users: to run our 3D simulations, Molecule Shapes or Plate Tectonics, you will still have to downgrade to Java 6 as described in our previous blog.

Have you tried Plate Tectonics or Molecule Shapes, but couldn’t get these sims to run on your computer?

Well, try again! We’ve upgraded both to work on as many platforms as possible. Please note that the simulations use LWJGL for the 3D graphics. Unfortunately, at this time LWJGL does not support Java 7 on Mac OSX. For to run these simulations, it is necessary to downgrade your Java to version 6. To learn how to do this, see

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5559?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

If you’re still having troubles, please let us know so we can ensure that it works for everyone.

Help bring PhET to tablets: Donate to PhET today.

See Tim Holt on El Paso Independent School District’s (EPISD) Digital Discoveries show how they use PhET.

PhET, December 9, 2011: “In this segment, we look at some amazing online simulations for science and math classes: PhET simulations. These are great for use on IWBs as well as for reinforcing concepts. We sample a few random PhET simulations, including John Travoltage!

Thanks Tom for the Shout Out!

Have you seen our latest video Using PhET in Lecture: Going Beyond Demos?

See how to use PhET simulations in powerful ways that engage a whole class in a large lecture setting. See examples of how you can incorporate clickers and other instructional techniques to deliver engaging interactive lecture demonstrations that will make maximum impact on student learning.

On January 10th, 2012, the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) released a bulletin regarding security issues with Java. One of the recommendations in this bulletin is to disable Java in web browsers. In many cases, this will prevent running PhET simulations directly from the PhET web site.

If you are a user of PhET simulations, are currently running Java 7 and want to still be able to use PhET simulations, we recommend that you take the following steps:

• Upgrade to the latest version of Java.
• Disable Java from running in web browsers. Note that this will prevent the “Run Now” option from launching simulations from the PhET site. This article has information about how to perform this operation.
• Run the simulations by downloading them via the “Download” button, and then running locally.

PhET will continue to monitor the situation surrounding Java security issues and will send out an update when the problems are fully resolved.

If you have questions or concerns regarding this, please contact us at [email protected].

Thank you for using and supporting PhET Interactive Simulations!

The University of Colorado Office of Information Technology will be performing a scheduled system reboot of the PhET server on Thursday, January 10 at 11:00 PM Mountain Standard Time. During this time, PhET (http://phet.colorado.edu) will experience periods of unavailability. We expect that the outage will last only 10 minutes and that we will be back online very quickly. However, if you experience issues, please e-mail the PhET Help Desk at [email protected].

Thanks for your patience during our system maintenance.

Happy New Year!

And thank you to all those who pledged their support to PhET in 2012. We are looking forward to an exciting 2013 with new simulations as well as making our more popular sims tablet compatible.

Don’t forget to try the HTML5 prototypes at:

• Masses & Springs
• Energy Skate Park
• Build an Atom
• Concentration
• Faraday’s Electromagnetic Lab