Introduction: Rigid Body Physics

- You're most likely here because you have some interest in the world of rigid body physics. Maybe you have some knowledge of rendering via OpenGL or Vulkan, - and you want to begin watching your up-until-now static scene come to life. Well, you're in the right place! In the course of this tutorial series I will walk - you through the entirety of a 2D rigid body physics system entirely in the web. All of this information will be extendable to other languages, but we will use - JavaScript and WebGL in these blog posts. Additionally, much of the information presented here can be extended to 3 dimensions, but 3D carries some complications - with it, that we will discuss in future blog posts. -

- In implementing a rigidy body physics system, we're primarily interested in two sub-fields of physics, namely dynamics and kinematics. Although I'm - far as can be from being an expert in either of these fields, I will explain - from a programmer's persepctive - what they mean to me: -

- Kinematics is the study of how an object's movement changes over time. These are the classic position, velocity, and acceleration equations - that you're most likely familiar with from high school or college physics. -
- Dynamics is the study of whats causes kinematic movement. These are the classic force and momentum equations that you may already be familiar - with as well. -

- Finally, I must provide a disclaimer that all of rigid body systems are very math-y. You will need to know a decent amount of vector calculus and linear algebra to really understand - what's going on here. I am going to assume that you have this knowledge. If you don't already have this knowledge, I will try and provide some resources on the Books - n' References page of the website. -