Eugene Butikov Personal Web Page
Eugene Butikov photo Eugene Butikov personal page (open resources in Russian)

Eugene Butikov personal page

Web of Science ResearcherID:G-9014-2013

ORCID: 0000-0003-2072-9547

SCOPUS Author ID: 6603696640

Contents



Work information



New Books


Recent Unpublished Papers


Selected Recent Publications

Click here to open the list of selected publications in Russian

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Computer Simulations (Java applets)

Please note that computer simulations listed below are implemented as Java applets embedded in web pages. Java applets are run on Windows and Mac computers directly in web browsers with Java plugin preinstalled. (Java applets do not run on tablets or pocket devices.) In case Java applets are blocked by your security settings, as a workaround, you can use the Exception Site List feature of your operating system to run. Adding the URL of the blocked application (applet) to the Exception Site List allows the applet to run with some warnings. Unfortunately, this works only in Internet Explorer browser (IE).

  • The Oceanic Tides . The educational software program with a detailed User’s Manual for university-level students. It includes simulations that aid understanding various aspects of a difficult but interesting and important subject concerning the origin and properties of the gravitational tide-generating forces. The program illustrates also the properties of stationary tidal waves in the open ocean generated by the sun-induced or moon-induced tidal forces. A simplified model of the ocean (a water shell of equal depth wholly covering the globe) is adopted for the simulation.

    A simplified English version of the Oceanic Tides program (with Java applets representing some of the simulations), and also its Russian version are available directly in the Web. A theoretical background with relevant mathematics for an in-depth study of the subject is included in the detailed User's Manual available as a pdf file (15 pages). The Oceanic Tides program is the winner of 11th Annual Educational Software Contest (2000, IEEE Computer Society, Computing in Science & Engineering magazine).

  • Computer Simulations in Classical Dynamics.

  • Physics of Oscillations (and also its Russian version). Lecture demonstrations and a virtual lab for undergraduate students. The simulation programs (Java applets) are executed directly in the browser and allow the user to study natural oscillations, forced oscillations, and parametric oscillations in simple linear and nonlinear mechanical systems. The simulations are based on adequate mathematical models of the investigated physical systems. Each lab work and demonstration includes a User's Manual that gives reference on the theory of the simulated phenomena and suggests activities.

  • Pendulum with Square-wave Modulated Length. A virtual lab for undergraduate students. The simulation program (Java applet) is executed directly in the browser and allows the user to study parametric oscillations in a simple familiar nonlinear mechanical system. The lab work includes a detailed user's manual with a relevant theoretical background.

  • Torsion Pendulum with Dry and Viscous Friction. A virtual lab for undergraduate students. The simulation program (Java applet) is executed directly in the browser and allows the user to study peculiarities of natural and forced oscillations in a nonlinear system with dry and viscous friction. The lab work includes a paper with a relevant theoretical background.

  • Nonlinear Oscillations (the project is under construction). A preliminary version of the simulation software package Nonlinear Oscillations (for MS Windows OS) includes a set of highly interactive programs that visualize the motion of simple nonlinear mechanical oscillatory systems. The project NONLINEAR OSCILLATIONS is not yet finalized: simulations of some other nonlinear systems will be added in the future versions, as well as some new or improved papers with theoretical investigations of the simulated systems. In the package Nonlinear Oscillations the following mechanical systems are simulated:
    • Oscillations and Rotations of a Rigid Pendulum
    • Rigid Pendulum Driven by a Sinusoidal Force
    • Pendulum Driven by a Square-wave Force
    • Pendulum with the Horizontally Driven Pivot
    • Pendulum with the Vertically Driven Pivot
    • Rigid Pendulum with Modulated Length
    • Combined Pendulum with Spring and Gravity
    To install the package on your machine, download the file Nonlinear.zip (7 MB), unzip it and run the standard setup procedure.

    Also a set of Java applets is under development which can be used as undergraduate students virtual on-line lab on nonlinear oscillations. An example of this set is given by the simulation of a simple but important nonlinear system in the lab Free Oscillations and Rotations of a Rigid Pendulum.

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Downloads

  • PLANETS AND SATELLITES. The simulation programs of the package are intended to help students learn and understand the fundamental laws of physics as they apply to the charming world of natural and artificial celestial bodies restlessly moving in space. The programs illustrate Kepler's laws, trajectories in velocity space, properties of various families of orbits, evolution of an orbit in the atmosphere, active maneuvers in space and relative motions of orbiting bodies, precession of an orbit, motions of a binary star components, and much more.

    The most fascinating phenomena are revealed in investigating the motions of three or more bodies. Among these are a satellite orbiting a planet that is orbiting a star; a planet in a double-star system; and several planets orbiting a single star. The simulations show how the systems that obey simple physical laws can behave in irregular, chaotic ways. The programs illustrate also possible quite simple motions of celestial bodies described by exact solutions to the three-body problem.

    The software allows the students to construct and investigate a model of the solar system, or to create an imaginary planetary system on their own – complete with the star, planets, moons, comets, asteroids, and satellites, and to explore their orbital motion governed by the gravitational forces. In this wonderful space laboratory we can even reproduce such a possible heavenly catastrophe as a binary encounter of stars which is especially interesting if the stars have planetary systems. For example, the approaching "intruder star" can capture a planet from the system, or even the stars can exchange planets during their rendezvous in space.

    The package PLANETS AND SATELLITES includes a detailed 176-page User’s Manual that gives a theoretical background and suggests students' activities. The manual contains about a hundred of problems. The package of simulation programs PLANETS AND SATELLITES is the 10th Annual Educational Software Contest winner (1999, Computing in Science and Engineering magazine), European Academic Software Award winner (EASA’2004).

    Version 4.0 (2014) is optimized for computers running under MS Windows 7 and Windows 10 operating systems. To install the package on your machine, download the file Planets.zip (7.4 MB), unzip it in a folder on your computer, and run the standard setup procedure (launch the file setup.exe).

    The package PLANETS AND SATELLITES supplements my book Motions of Celestial Bodies: Computer Simulations, IOP Publishing Ltd (2014). The book presents the theoretical background and a detailed description of the simulation programs included in the package.

  • PHYSICS OF OSCILLATIONS. The package includes a set of highly interactive programs that allow the user to observe the simulations of simple mechanical oscillatory systems, and obtain time-dependent graphs of the variables that describe the simulated system, phase diagrams and graphs of energy transformations. Graphs and diagrams appear on the screen simultaneously with the display of motion. The suggested experiments have been designed to be plain and obvious. The user can widely modify parameters of the investigated physical systems and conditions of the experiments. The simulations bring to life many abstract concepts related to the physics of oscillations.

    The package PHYSICS OF OSCILLATIONS includes a 160-page User’s Manual that gives a theoretical background for the simulated mechanical systems and suggests students' activities. The manual contains hundreds of problems and exercises. A 95-page Instructor’s Guide gives details of their solutions. The package is the European Academic Software Award winner (EASA’96), Ninth Annual Educational Software Contest winner (1998, Computers in Physics magazine).

    To install the package on your machine (for OS Windows 10), download the file MasterDiskOsc.zip (8.9 MB), unzip it in a folder on your computer, and run the standard setup procedure (launch the file setup.exe). If you are using an earlier Windows version (say, Windows XP or Windows 7), download the file MasterDiskOsc_old.zip (7.3 MB) and launch the file setup.exe.

    The simulations of the package PHYSICS OF OSCILLATIONS serve as illustrations to my book Simulations of Oscillatory Systems, Taylor & Francis Group, CRC Press, USA (2015) (363 pp.). A draft pdf version of the book Simulations of Oscillatory Systems (18 MB) with the theoretical background and a detailed description of the simulation programs can be dowloaded here.

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Contact Information

  • E-mail:
  • Address: Department of Physics, Saint Petersburg State University
    Uljanovskaya st. 3, Petershoff
    198504 St. Petersburg, Russia
  • Web address: http://butikov.faculty.ifmo.ru
  • Phone: 8 921 636 8539, Fax: (812) 232 43 18

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Curriculum Vitae

  • Graduated from St. Petersburg (former Leningrad) State University in 1962 (Department of Physics). Presently I am full professor of general physics at St. Petersburg State University and St. Petersburg Institute of Fine Mechanics and Optics. I give lecture courses on general physics, optics, quantum theory of solids, theory of oscillations. I have written several textbooks on physics used widely in Russia.
  • My research work is associated with solid state physics (quantum theory of electronic paramagnetic resonance, theory of Josephson effects in weak superconductivity), theory of nonlinear oscillations. Several new complicated and even counterintuitive modes of regular and chaotic behavior have been discovered recently in parametrically excited simple nonlinear systems with the help of computer simulations. I have succeeded in finding clear physical explanations for some of these modes, and in a theoretical determination of their boundaries in the parameter space.

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Personal Interests

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Last revised: 15. 02. 2020

Eugene Butikov – personal page