As you have already seen in this Guide, the Open Source Physics project,
with its wide variety of packages, libraries, programs, and files, is a large
body of work useful for the study of computational physics. Many instructors,
however, do not do research in (or teach) computational physics. In order for
these instructors to use OSP in their courses (or in their educational,
experimental, or theoretical research), the various physical models already
available within OSP must be easily accessible, modifiable, and distributable.
The paradigm for authoring, organizing, and running curricular material
described in this chapter uses the Launcher and LaunchBuilder
programs developed and distributed by the OSP project to accomplish this goal.
To accompany Chapter 15 of the Guide, we have created curricular units for classical mechanics (orbits), electromagnetism (radiation from point charges), and quantum mechanics (time evolution of superpositions of states). This material is accessed by double-clicking the file osp_demo.jar.
We briefly begin each curricular unit with a review of the theory behind the phenomena we are simulating, then briefly describe the programs used and the curricular unit. A fuller description of the programs (including all of the editable parameters) and the curricular material can be found in the "Help" tab.