Stringwave

This is actually a fun experiment in real life. All you need is a string (ones with small, horizontal stripes work best for visualization), a mechanical oscillator, and a signal generator

This is a good example of what I love about Neatorama. I don't know where you find all the physics simulations, but they are great! Keep them coming!

I did my graduate work in dynamics (vibration emphasis), so I can tell you that programming something like this is non-trivial. There are a lot of short cuts that could have gotten the basic points across, but they took the time to make it really physically meaningful.

hmm, interesting for a second

go to the
Polychromatic Millipede
at MOWA museum of web art
http://www.mowa.org/kids/kids_main.html
for hours of useless fun

heh. i like it!