Game Design
Two Reasons to Love Physics
He’s 71, teaches at MIT, and he does multiple full dress rehearsals of his lectures before he unleashes them on his unsuspecting pupils. His class costs the school three hundred grand per semester. And he’s definitely the guy that you wished was your physics teacher. But he wasn’t- because if you’re reading my blog, you don’t go to MIT. Ladies and gents, Walter Lewin.
I actually never even took a physics class in high school, but that’s probably because I didn’t associate it with explosions. It’s also because my schedule was already taken up with classes like Intro to Small Arms and Street Slang 101- both of which have served me admirably in my current career. However, now I’m beginning to regret the physics-less education of my youth.
Or rather, I would be regretting my ignorance if not for Alec Cove, who has given the world the gift of the Actionscript Physics Engine (APE). It’s not the only AS3 physics library out there, but in my opinion it’s certainly the simplest to use. It doesn’t seem to have the support of Fisix or the features of Box2D, but if you just want to pick up a physics engine and run with it, I suggest you give APE a try.
Also, if you’re interested, you can download 35 hours of video lectures by this Walter Lewin guy at MIT’s OpenCourseWare.
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2 comments for “Two Reasons to Love Physics”
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As much as I like Cove, I’m sorry, but I’ve just got to write my own. It’s so fun! I’ll update you on when I release mine!
APE does seem to have some missing features. If yours has them, then I’d totally switch.