alt.hn

2/16/2026 at 7:17:46 PM

Show HN: 2D Coulomb Gas Simulator

https://simonhalvdansson.github.io/2D-Coulomb-Gas-Tools/index_gpu.html

by swesnow

2/16/2026 at 11:19:42 PM

Note 1: I had to go to the middle and reduce the number of particles to 1000 to be able to run it in my phone.

Note 2: In this case, 2D means that the force is proportional to distance^-1 instead of the usual distance^-2. It's not a 3D word projected into a plane, it's a real 2D word that lives inside a plane. It would be nice to have an option to switch and compare. I have no intuition about the difference.

Note 3: Somewhere in the middle, it's possible to switch the external potencial from z^2 to z^4 to z^20, where z is the distance from the center.

z^2 "Ginibre" is a nice round surface, like a wok. Electrons get evenly distributed.

z^20 "Mittag-Leffler lambda=10" is flat in the center and then goes up quickly, like a saucepan. Electrons escape from each other, a few of them remain in the center but most get squashed against the circular wall.

z^4 "Mittag-Leffler lambda=2" Something in between

by gus_massa

2/16/2026 at 8:25:06 PM

Awesome! Beautiful work. Mesmerizing, even

by bizzyskillet

2/16/2026 at 8:56:40 PM

Warning: if you increase the steps per frame it will break your phone. At least with my iPhone and Safari it stalls the entire phone.

by zeitgeistcowboy

2/16/2026 at 9:07:17 PM

Yes, the web page persists through reboots.

You have to painfully force quit Safari by going through the motions of the gestures, wait for the phone to respond, and then quit Safari from the card task switcher.

by xattt

2/16/2026 at 9:45:49 PM

Quick submit a level 10 CVE DOS vuln!

by klysm