ABSTRACT
Computing is a tool for scientific research. So we better get to the essence and start using it with a scientific goal in mind.
As an example, we study the following simple physical system. A freely rotating and frictionless rod is periodically kicked along a fixed direction, such that the effect of the kicking depends on the rod’s position; see Figure 5.1. The equations for the angle α, measured from the vertical, and the angular velocity ω after each kick are
αn+1 = αn + ωnT
ωn+1 = ωn +K sinαn+1
The period of kicking is T and K is its strength. The iteration acts as a strobe effect for the time-continuous system, which records (α, ω) every time interval T , which is also the time interval between kicks.
