written by Wolfgang Christian, Harvey Gould, and Jan Tobochnik

The classical helium OSP program is a simple example of a three body problem and is similar to gravitational problem of a heavy sun and two light planets.  The model consists of two electrons moving in a 2/r potential well and interacting through a 1/r potential.  Initial conditions can be set to show phenomena such as  autoionization or braided orbits.  These conditions are stored in an xml document.

An EJS implementation of this model is also available.  Search the OSP collection for classical helium.

• Download mech_helium.jar - 571kb Java Archive File

Last Modified May 21, 2008