Jeremy Emmett edited Total Energy.md  over 9 years ago

Commit id: 9c2e8e0d7e96c3cb91c2e2d8d9aad7bf53f8fb3d

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##Total Energy  The total energy of the system had almost no variation over the entire simulation, out to three decimal places, ranging between -405.084 and -405.086. It oscillated between high values early-on, but stabilized to -405.084 by the 285th orbit. The total energy was well-preserved with the leap frog integration scheme, the given dt, and the given epsilon. The negative sign correctly indicates that the system is gravitationally bound. The total energy of the system and the potential energy of the system are similar, due to the fact that most of the energy in the system is dominated by the potential energy of the Sun, being much more massive than any other particles in the system. Though they were calculated with different formulae, the kinetic and potential energies correctly sum to the total energy.