~ Early Web Links ~

Donald Simanek, a physics professor, has assembled a sprawling collection of resources covering physics puzzles, perpetual motion machines, pseudoscience debunking, creationism criticism, and science humor. Highlights include the Museum of Unworkable Devices, illustrated lectures, and a rich archive of skeptical and educational content that has earned recognition as one of the top skeptical websites on the web.

The Particle Adventure is an award-winning interactive guide to particle physics from the Particle Data Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, covering quarks, neutrinos, the Higgs boson, dark matter, antimatter, and particle accelerators. Available in over a dozen languages and designed for students and curious minds alike, it offers classroom activities, particle history charts, and deep dives into the fundamental building blocks of the universe.

Created by physicist E. Butikov of IFMO, this collection presents interactive Java applets simulating remarkable three-body gravitational motion problems, including the famous figure-eight periodic orbit and restricted three-body scenarios. It bridges classical Newtonian mechanics and celestial mechanics with hands-on simulations suitable for students and advanced researchers exploring planetary system dynamics.

Robert G. Brown, a physicist at Duke University, shares an extensive collection of free online textbooks, physics study materials, poetry collections, philosophy essays, and beowulf cluster computing resources. The site is a sprawling intellectual hub covering everything from GPL software tools to metaphysics, all freely licensed under an open public license.

The Open Source Physics project, supported by NSF and the AAPT, provides free computational curriculum resources including simulations, modeling tools, and student worksheets designed to help learners explore physical phenomena through computer modeling. Highlights include the Tracker video analysis tool and Easy Java Simulations (EJS) framework, making it a comprehensive hub for physics educators and students at all levels.

A physics professor at SUNY Stony Brook takes aim at pseudoscience and scientific quackery, exploring the psychological and personality traits that lead people to reject well-established science like evolution, vaccination, and modern physics. The page is a sharp, witty critique of fringe theorists who show up insisting their ideas will overturn all known physics, drawing a careful distinction between bold legitimate scientists and true cranks.

Richard Fitzpatrick is a Professor of Physics at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in fusion studies, with this page serving as a hub for his research, teaching materials, academic papers, talks, and books. Visitors interested in plasma physics or fusion energy will find a gateway to substantial scholarly resources from an active academic researcher.

RainbowSpec is an in-depth yet beginner-friendly educational site exploring how rainbows and color work, covering everything from the visible spectrum and refraction to supernumerary rainbows, fogbows, glories, and thin film interference. The site is thoughtfully organized with starred pages marking foundational concepts, and it links to classic atmospheric optics references that inspired its creation.

William J. Beaty, an electrical engineer from Seattle, explores the fascinating physics of traffic jams, treating highway congestion as fluid dynamics and demonstrating how a single driver can dissolve traffic waves. The site features animations, videos, experiments, and links to academic research on 'jam-absorption driving,' making it a surprisingly deep dive into an everyday phenomenon.

Peter Woit's 'Not Even Wrong' is a long-running physics blog hosted at Columbia University, covering cutting-edge topics in theoretical physics including twistor theory, quantum field theory, and the mathematics of unification. Woit writes with deep technical expertise and a critical perspective, making this a destination for mathematically sophisticated readers interested in the foundations of modern physics.