Monday, April 09, 2012

The Non-Newtonian Physics Of Angry Birds Space

It was bound to happen. Analysis of the physics (or non-physics) of the new Angry Birds Space is already out. This is one such example. Of course, anyone with a good knowledge of physics would have already spotted a few non-Newtonian dynamics of this game.
But some of the more realistic characteristics of the game don’t quite obey Newton’s laws. For starters, the gravitational fields appear to have a uniform magnitude instead of weakening with distance from an object’s center (called the inverse square rule). That seems to be a casualty of making the game fun. “Otherwise, gravity would be too weak at the edges of the field,” says Erin Catto, the game physics programmer who created Box2d, the physics engine that runs behind the curtain at Angry Birds.
It's still a fun game but it would have been ridiculously outrageous if they had stuck with the actual physics. :)

Zz.

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