A computational approach to the Thomson Problem (Python)

[@duncanm716]

In the video I said "as electrons would", as if this is how they are arranged in the atom. Of course we now know this isn't how things work, but Thomson's theory predates quantum mechanics.

[@duncanm716]

Hopefully by the time I start making the next video I will have a way to animate the motion of the points as well as a live plot to show the change in potential energy.

[@thuukies]

This is by far my favorite car

[@duncanm716]

I lied about my next video being the big one.

[@samuelbarbeau7065]

The algorithm brought me here and I have no idea what I'm looking at but this is pretty awesome!

[@jamesonjolley2897]

That's relly cool man keep it up!

[@jamesonjolley2897]

I am a computer scientist. I could help you optimize this or even port it to C or C++ would you be willing to share your code?

[@duncanm716]

For sure! There are definitely some things I need to clean up first. I will set up a GitHub soon to post the properly documented code. I'm also working on an explanation video that should clear up some things.

[@duncanm716]

For the case of N=100 points the potential energy of my system differs from the published result by 0.26%. They are from: mathpages.com/home/kmath005/kmath005.htm