A primer to numerical simulations: The perihelion motion of Mercury
Abstract
Numerical simulations are playing an increasingly important role in modern science. In this work it is suggested to use a numerical study of the famous perihelion motion of the planet Mercury (one of the prime observables supporting Einsteins General Relativity) as a test case to teach numerical simulations to high school students. The paper includes details about the development of the code as well as a discussion of the visualization of the results. In addition a method is discussed that allows one to estimate the size of the effect as well as the uncertainty of the approach a priori. At the same time this enables the students to double check the results found numerically. The course is structured into a basic block and two further refinements which aim at more advanced students.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1803.01678,
title = {A primer to numerical simulations: The perihelion motion of Mercury},
author = {Christopher Körber and Inka Hammer and Jan-Lukas Wynen and Joseline Heuer and Christian Müller and Christoph Hanhart},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1803.01678},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
22 pages, 6 figures, supplementary material available at https://github.com/ckoerber/perihelion-mercury