OSP SPINS Java Homepage

David H. McIntyre
Dept. of Physics, Oregon State University

Spins is an interactive computer program that simulates Stern-Gerlach measurements on spin 1/2 and spin 1 particles. The original Macintosh version was written by D. V. Schroeder (see Am. J. Phys. 61, 798 (1993)). We have developed a JAVA version for use in the Paradigm course PH425: Spin and Quantum Measurement. An enhanced version of SPINS has been developed by Wolfgang Christian and Mario Belloni of the Open Source Physics (OSP) project. As part of the collaboration between the Paradigms group and the OSP group, we are now using the OSP SPINS program in our classs.

The OSP SPINS program is available as an application or an applet:

  • APPLICATION: The OSP SPINS application is packaged as a jar file. Download it to your machine (you may have to right click and save). If you have Java installed you can double click on the jar file, or from the directory where the file resides type the follwoig command to run the java code:

    >java -jar osp_spins.jar

    If you do not have Java, you can download the Java Runtime Engine from Sun (JRE). Read this help file to see how to use the OSP version of the Spins program.
  • APPLET: Click the button below to run the OSP Spins Applet from a browser.

  • Help for the SPINS program is available in html or pdf format.

© David McIntyre
Department of Physics, Oregon State University, 2006.
mcintyre@ucs.orst.edu
Updated 12.19.06

Partial support for the development of this software was provided by
The L. L. Stewart Faculty Development Fund
OSU Foundation, Corvallis, Oregon.