The physics of Angry Birds

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/physics-of-angry-birds/

by d_r • 16 years ago

73 25 16 years ago

This type of article on the front page makes me not want to read HN anymore. Yes, it is slightly interesting, but how does this apply to hacking or entrepreneurs at all? It is just a basic physics problem. I fail to see any value added to the HN community.

jscore• 16 years ago

I agree, but you have to admit that this type of article has alot _MORE_ to do with HN than some of the other crap, errr..stuff that's been posted and subsequently voted up. HN is becoming mainstream very fast.

guynamedloren4• 16 years ago

True indeed.

ars• 16 years ago

HN is not just about hacking and entrepreneurs, it's about anything interesting.

I found it mildly interesting, not interesting enough to upvote, but a bit - it had a tip on an interesting piece of software too (Tracker Video analysis). Obviously other people found it a bit more interesting, there's nothing wrong with that.

The title is a bit cheating though, since I thought it was about actual birds, not a game.

guynamedloren4• 16 years ago

There are plenty of places on the internet to find "anything interesting" (see: reddit, digg, youtube). Those places do a great job at wasting time that could otherwise be spent being productive. In other words, those places exist as entertainment portals. There is nothing wrong with that. Entertainment is healthy.

I do not come to Hacker News, however, to waste time. I come to Hacker News for intellectual debate and a deeper form of thinking. Both of these, among others, foster personal growth and learning. That is the value I pull from Hacker News. I'm sure PG would understand where I'm coming from here. So let's keep "anything interesting" to digg. They're doing great so far.

flannell• 16 years ago

I think I might be part of the problem. I came to HN accidentally while searching Google for video post-production tips. I normally get my social news fix on digg.com and have used them for the last 5-6 years, slashdot and ntk before it, but recently got fed up with the juvenile comments and the 'Top 10 x' or 'Catz cheeze' type posts. I think Diggs latest v4 has driven their entire readership to reddit, tumblr and also here. So depending on your view, I think HN will continue to get popular and descend further down the LOLCATs route. I would add that I think today this community is great and extremely insightful - speaking as a director of a web services company.

cletus• 16 years ago

It's an article that you can tell from the title that you (specifically) don't want to read. What's so hard about ignoring it?

Better this than say programmer barbie...

I click on about 1 link in 10 or 20 as it is. It doesn't mean the rest is bad. It just doesn't necessarily interest me. Nothing wrong with that.

Also the fact that something this simple has a fairly simplistic model is of interest and relevance to many entrepreneurs, hence the rank. It's a lesson in not overcomplicating things.

fbailey• 16 years ago

I actually thought that this was interesting and useful ... not very interesting.

It's a partly deconstruction of one of the most succesful mobile games and probably the most succesful iPad game. If you are a Hacker the probability is high you are thinking about iPad games at the moment.

Odd articles like this one together form a coherent picture and might help develop new ideas.

poundy• 16 years ago

On a lighter note, what is the physics behind a bird hitting and breaking through concrete walls and ice barriers?

Groxx• 16 years ago

e = (mv^2)/2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy

gurtwo• 16 years ago

That's what I hoped to see when I clicked in the link; an explanation of the collision model when the bird hits the blocks. The initial parabolic flight is just basic physics.

zackola• 16 years ago

The cool thing about the article was that I learned about the free video tracking/analysis software. Could be pretty interesting stuff in other contexts.

bockris• 16 years ago

I came to post this exact comment.

I built an pneumatic cannon to launch tennis balls and rockets etc with my kids and I want to figure out the height and speed of various projectiles and air pressures.

bgraves• 16 years ago

I have a friend who recently started teaching physics to high school students. I showed him this software, which I found through searching a few weeks ago, and he loved it.

Another great program is Vernier Video Physics for iOS devices. http://www.vernier.com/soft/videophysics.html

Also, Angry Birds physics makes me angry -- it's terribly unrealistic.

j_s• 16 years ago

free video tracking/analysis software: http://www.cabrillo.edu/~dbrown/tracker/

ginkgo• 16 years ago

This is somewhat related: http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2007/mariogravity.shtml

siglesias2• 16 years ago

Parabolic trajectories? Snooze.

Let's get a game that makes a mechanic out of Lorentz transforms!

siglesias2• 16 years ago

Seriously though if anyone wants to brainstorm about this, you send me a tweet thru my HN handle.

eru• 16 years ago

Most do. Though they aren't hitting the part where Lorents transforms deviate from Galileo transforms.

ankimal• 16 years ago

KISS - Keep it Simple Stupid. Very addictive, hugely successful and deservedly so.

noglorp• 16 years ago

I hate the endless "zomg angry birds is teh best evar" rhetoric.

How is it that one of the most copied game mechanics in Flash gaming gets treated as original?

Raise your hand if you have played 20 different pre-angry-birds catapult destruction games! Worse yet is that it is like an instant implementation with Box2D.

tptacek• 16 years ago

You got downmodded, presumably for snark (or for being off-topic?) but not being a game dev I'm glad to have learned about box2d; thanks!

The physics of Angry Birds

Related Stories