The banana launcher

Physics is the art of building simplified models of the world that are just accurate enough to make reliable predictions. We observe how objects move, identify the dominant effects, write down mathematical laws, and then use them to anticipate what will happen next. In this course, we will adopt exactly the same mindset, but in a virtual setting. Starting from a world we do not fully know, we will observe how bananas fly, infer the underlying rules that govern their motion, and construct a mathematical model of that world. By translating our assumptions into equations and solving them numerically, we will learn how prediction emerges from modeling, and how even a simple virtual experiment can teach us the core ideas behind scientific computing.