Simulations -Traffic Jams and Asteroid Impacts

Simulations -Traffic Jams and Asteroid Impacts

You can study the mathematics behind traffic flow using this simulator.  Why do traffic jams form?  How does the speed limit or traffic lights or the number of lorries on the road affect road conditions?   You can run a number of different simulations – looking at ring road traffic, lane closures and how robust the system is by applying an unexpected perturbation (like an erratic driver).

There is a lot of scope for investigation – with some prompts on the site.  For example, just looking at one variable – the speed limit – what happens in the lane closure model?  Interestingly, with a homogenous speed of 80 km/h there is no traffic congestion – but if the speed is increased to 140km/h then large congestion builds up quickly as cars are unable to change lanes.   This is why reduced speed limits  are applied on motorways during lane closures.

Another investigation is looking at how the style of driving affects the models.  You can change the politeness of the drivers – do they change lanes recklessly?  How many perturbations (erratic incidents) do you need to add to the simulation to cause a traffic jam?

This is a really good example of mathematics used in a real life context – and also provides some good opportunities for a computer based investigation looking at the altering one parameter at a time to note the consequences.

Another good simulation is on the Impact: Earth page.  This allows you to investigate the consequences of various asteroid impacts on Earth – choosing from different parameters such as diameter, velocity, density and angle of impact.  It then shows a detailed breakdown of thee consequences – such as crater size and energy released.   You can also model some famous impacts from history and see their effects.   Lots of scope for mathematical modelling – and also for links with physics.  Also possible discussion re the logarithmic Richter scale – why is this useful?

Student Handout

Asteroid Impact – Why is this important?
Comets and asteroids impact with Earth all the time – but most are so small that we don’t even notice. On a cosmic scale however, the Earth has seen some massive impacts – which were they to happen again today could wipe out civilisation as we know it.

The website Impact Earth allows us to model what would happen if a comet or asteroid hit us again. Jay Melosh professor of Physics and Earth Science says that we can expect “fairly large” impact events about every century. The last major one was in Tunguska Siberia in 1908 – which flattened an estimated 80 million trees over an area of 2000 square km. The force unleashed has been compared to around 1000 Hiroshima nuclear bombs. Luckily this impact was in one of the remotest places on Earth – had the impact been near a large city the effects could be catastrophic.

Jay says that, ”The biggest threat in our near future is the asteroid Apophis, which has a small chance of striking the Earth in 2036. It is about one-third of a mile in diameter.”

Task 1: Watch the above video on a large asteroid impact – make some notes.

Task 2:Research about Apophis – including the dimensions and likely speed of the asteroid and probability of collision. Use this data to enter into the Impact Earth simulation and predict the damage that this asteroid could do.

Task 3: Investigate the Tunguska Event. When did it happen? What was its diameter? Likely speed? Use the data to model this collision on the Impact Earth Simulation. Additional: What are the possible theories about Tunguska? Was it a comet? Asteroid? Death Ray?

Task 4: Conduct your own investigation on the Impact Earth Website into what factors affect the size of craters left by impacts. To do this you need to change one variable and keep all the the other variables constant.  The most interesting one to explore is the angle of impact.  Keep everything else the same and see what happens to the crater size as the angle changes from 10 degrees to 90 degrees.  What angle would you expect to cause the most damage?  Were you correct?  Plot the results as a graph.

If you enjoyed this post you might also like:

Champagne Supernovas and the Birth of the Universe – some amazing photos from space.

Fractals, Mandelbrot and the Koch Snowflake – using maths to model infinite patterns.

Student resources

Exploration Guides and Paper 3 Resources

I’ve put together four comprehensive pdf guides to help students prepare for their exploration coursework and Paper 3 investigations. The exploration guides talk through the marking criteria, common student mistakes, excellent ideas for explorations, technology advice, modeling methods and a variety of statistical techniques with detailed explanations. I’ve also made 17 full investigation questions which are also excellent starting points for explorations.  The Exploration Guides can be downloaded here and the Paper 3 Questions can be downloaded here.