The Zeeman Catastrophe Machine Model shows the rotational motion of wheel that is free to rotate but is connected to two elastics, one which is free to move in the xy-plane, and one that is set a fixed distance d away. The model initiates in a steady state where there is no rotational velocity and the magnitude of the tensions in the two elastics are equal. The user can drag the blue point to change the torque on the wheel, or they can enter values in the input fields on the top panel. The user can also change the angle theta, the coefficient of dampening, the spring constant, the moment of inertia.

The Zeeman Catastrophe Machine Model was developed as a final project in a sophomore-level Computational Physics course (Phy 200) using the Easy Java Simulations (EJS) modeling tool.  It is distributed as a ready-to-run (compiled) Java archive.   Double clicking the jar file will run the program if Java is installed.  You can modify this simulation if you have EJS installed by right-clicking within the map and selecting "Open Ejs Model" from the pop-up menu item.

Please note that this resource requires at least version 1.6 of Java (JRE).