Balls dropped on function |x| @animations

Uploaded April 2023 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

Another drop-balls-on-a-function video; here on f(x) = |x|. 100 balls, initially mutually separated by 1e-4 plot width.

The utterly beautiful song is made by @gpcbass, called Vanessa, and previously used a couple of times on this channel. Full version here: youtube.com/watch?v=yE8G0kmfzjc

Visuals in Python and FFmpeg.

$Fractal emerging from chaos in a circle Shown is a ball bouncing in a circle under gravity for many start positions. The sixth bounce is associated with a color of the circle for colouring a pixel representing the start position. For a relatively high pixel density, the resulting image becomes a fractal. In the very end, a corresponding image for 10 bounces is shown, indicating, unsurprisingly, a more chaotic behaviour. Music by @gpcbass! The song is called Cayenne.$

Symmetric chaos by 2^27 particles dropped inside an ellipse

Increasingly sized cubes of interacting balls dropped on flat surface

2^29 balls dropped in a strong magnetic field (and a bug?)

Extruded bronze moose demonstrates the Dzhanibekov effect

Electric field lines from oscillating charge

Extruded bronze moose and iron triceratops rotating in free space (corrected)