By enabling students to carry out simulated experiments, OnScreen Particle Physics presents modern physics as a human activity, not just a set of facts. It is accessible to students at various levels, as no advanced mathematics is required. The heart of the OnScreen Particle Physics environment is the simulated particle chamber , which appears on the computer screen in three-dimensional perspective. At the user's choice, particle decay events, randomly generated in accordance with the true physics, appear in the chamber as charged-particle tracks, curved by the chamber's simulated magnetic field.
Color is used to distinguish the tracks of different particles.
The user can rotate the chamber to view the tracks from different perspectives and can replay the event, thus obtaining a vivid picture of the event in both space and time. The user controls the energy of the particle to be injected into the chamber, the size of the chamber, and the strength of the magnetic field. On-screen tools, including projection views and an electronic tape measure, allow the user to solve the puzzle of particle masses and liftimes exactly as real particle physicists do. A bonus component called Trackmaker builds physical intuition in a gamelike, interactive simulation of the motion of a charged particle in a user-controlled magnetic field. Interesting events may be saved to disk for later analysis, and both chamber views and projections of events can be printed.