0. What Am I Doing Here?

In computer science, if a system completely breaks, it is generally because someone, somewhere, missed a semicolon. The rules of computation are entirely fabricated by humans, but they are strictly enforced.

Physics, on the other hand, is the universe's legacy spaghetti code. It has been running uninterrupted for 13.8 billion years, it has virtually zero documentation, and the original developer refuses to answer bug reports.

Naturally, I thought this would be a relaxing hobby.

0.1 The First Law of Physics

Before we can launch rockets or calculate the orbital resonance of Jupiter's moons, we must start with the most fundamental concept in all of physics: aggressive oversimplification.

Figure 1: An artist's rendition of a perfectly spherical cow in a frictionless vacuum.

As you can see in Figure 1, the terrifying complexities of biological reality have been neatly ignored in favour of a shape we can actually calculate. This is a crucial survival skill.

0.2 Mathematical Assertions

Because this is a lab book, we will inevitably need to use mathematics. Let us test the typesetting engine with a classic. According to Newton, the force $F$ applied to an object is equal to its mass $m$ multiplied by its acceleration $a$:

$$F = ma$$

If only it stayed this simple. Eventually, we will have to deal with calculus and orbital trajectories, at which point this journal will likely dissolve into a series of increasingly frustrated question marks.

0.3 The "Spherical Cow" Simulation

To prove that our underlying JavaScript physics engine is fully operational, I have constructed a highly advanced simulation. Below is a digital representation of a frictionless vacuum.

Click the canvas to introduce gravity to the system.

Notice how the cow eventually stops bouncing. This is because I manually programmed an energy bleed into the bounce mechanic. In a true theoretical model with a restitution coefficient of $1.0$, it would bounce forever—which is mathematically beautiful, but absolutely terrible for User Experience.

0.4 Next Steps

Now that the engine is built, the typography is readable, and the layout doesn't completely collapse when viewed on a mobile phone, we can abandon this tutorial nonsense and attempt actual orbital mechanics.

Stand by for Chapter One.