Capstone idea: model Throcky

Capstone idea: today’s problem about Throkmorton could actually be turned into a capstone pretty easily. You could write a Vpython program to model Throky’s motion, and run it hundreds of times in a few seconds to see how far throcky gets from his starting point each time. Throky’s path is actually called a 1-D random walk, and it’s the very same thing that a photon (light particle) has to do when it is produced during a fusion reaction in the middle of the sun, and has to eventually make its way to the surface. What’s amazing is the photon is constantly interacting with other atoms, being absorbed and re-emitted in random directions (just like Throcky’s coin flip), and because of this, the journey of this photon takes 4000 years.

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