Using the visualizations
How the interactive visualizations work: playback controls, sliders, keyboard and touch use, and the kinds of visualization you will meet.
Terakhir diperbarui 11 Oktober 2026
Halaman ini belum diterjemahkan ke bahasa Indonesia. Halaman yang ditampilkan dalam bahasa Inggris.
The visualizations are part of each editorial's argument. They work on a phone: nothing depends on hover, and every control can be used by touch or keyboard.
Playback controls
Most visualizations share one control bar:
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Step back / Step forward | Move one step at a time. |
| Play / Pause | Run the visualization automatically. Nothing plays until you press Play. |
| Reset | Return to the starting state. |
| Scrub slider | Jump to any step, or any moment in time. |
A short label beside the controls shows where you are, for example "Step 3 of 8" or the elapsed time.
Sliders
Sandbox-style visualizations expose their key quantities as sliders, such as the launch angle of a projectile or the eccentricity of an orbit. Drag a slider, or focus it and use the arrow keys, and the picture updates.
Some visualizations ask a question. A trajectory sandbox can show a target on the ground: set the launch, press Play, and you are told whether you landed on it. After two misses a hint appears. Your attempts are not saved anywhere and start again when you reload the page.
Where a visualization moves between steps, the picture glides to the next step instead of jumping. If your device is set to reduce motion, it jumps instead.
Keyboard use
- Tab moves between controls, and the focus ring shows where you are.
- Space or Enter activates a button.
- The launch handle in a trajectory sandbox is focusable too: Left / Right (or Down / Up) change the angle by 1°, Shift with an arrow by 5°, and Home / End jump to the smallest or largest angle.
- On a slider, Left / Right (or Down / Up) change the value by one step, Page Up / Page Down by a larger step, and Home / End jump to the minimum or maximum.
The kinds of visualization
| Kind | What you can do |
|---|---|
| Graph / array stepper | Step through an algorithm on an array or graph, with pointers, highlighted cells and a one-line note per step. |
| Trajectory sandbox | Change the launch speed and angle and watch the path. Drag the round handle at the launch point to aim, or use the angle slider. Some come with a target to hit. |
| Orbital sandbox | Change eccentricity and mass ratio and watch the orbit and a schematic transit light curve. |
| Blackbody spectrum comparison | Switch between the Rayleigh–Jeans law, Planck's law and both, change the temperature, and move the cursor along the wavelength axis to read both laws. Click or drag the plot, or focus it and use Left / Right (Shift for bigger steps, Home / End for the edges). |
| Relative period sandbox | Switch between Earth's day and planetary orbits, change the periods, and play or scrub one full cycle. In Earth's day mode, the two jump buttons take you to the moment the marked meridian returns to the stars and the moment it faces the Sun again. |
| Composed scene | A custom scene built from reusable shapes, curves and labels, with optional sliders and steps. |
| Programmable scene | A custom scene driven by a small sandboxed program, built visually from blocks. |
The last two are authored without writing code. If you want to make your own, see The scene builder.
If a visualization does not load
Visualizations load after the page itself, so you may see a placeholder for a moment. They need JavaScript, but the text of the editorial, including the full proof, is available without it. If a visualization shows a configuration error, the editorial's setup is wrong, so please report it.