Euler's Elastica
This applet demonstrates some of the dynamics of Euler's elastica clamped in a wall at one end and with a mass tied to the other end. The blue curve is the elastica itself. The red line indicates the strength of the force applied by the elastica to the attached mass. A sequence of 64 pictures is shown alternately forwards and backwards. When it is running backwards, the red line indicates the strength of the force applied to the elastica by the attached mass. Note how counter-intuitive the dynamics are!

It has been written in Java 1.1.6. Older browsers will not necessarily be able to run it.



A link back to the elastica project home page.
A link back to the EmMa home page.