Instructions

Brief Instructions For Silver Hammer Overview SilverHammer is an alpha version of a field mapping program for point charges. The fields are relativistically accurate. The fields are calculated from the Liénard-Wiechert potentials for point charged particles. Charges are entered in the "Charges" window. The region surrounded by the black border is the region that the graphs will map. Graphs are created in the "Graph" Window. Think of the two windows as two separate construction zones. The charge distribution is laid out in the "Charges" window, and the graphs of the fields are created and manipulated in the "Graph" window. In the graph window you can overlay graphs, compare graphs and order frames for a QuickTime movie. All color graphs are drawn off-screen so the redrawing of the screen is extremely fast. Color & Memory: The alpha version has the colors hard coded so that you cannot change them. Future versions will implement a color manager that will allow you assign colors to the graphs. The bitmaps are full 24-bit QuickDraw pix maps, and they require large amounts of memory. If you have Color QuickDraw installed in system 6.0.8 or have system 7 installed, you can greatly reduce the memory requirements by setting your monitor to black and white (1-bit graphics) in the monitors control panel. SilverHammer will then only generate bit-maps that are 1-bit deep. This saves both the RAM memory required to display the pictures and the disk space required by saved files. A bug exists in some of the drawing routines (fieldlines) in which the picture is drawn all black if your monitor setting exceeds 256 colors. The Charges Window Coordinate System: Distance is measured in screen pixels, so the speed of light is given in pixels per time click. The coordinate system follows the Macintosh convention: The origin is at the upper left corner of the black bordered region. x increases to the right and y increases down the screen. The Black Border: The black border represents the graph region. When any graphs are produced in the graph window, they will graph the fields over the region within the black border. Charged particles, however, are not constrained to the black region and may travel beyond the borders. When this happens, the graph region will automatically add a page to accommodate the new region. The default size of the black border region is one printed 8(1/2)" by 11" page. Orientation of Page: The orientation of the page can be changed in the "Page Set-Up" choice under the "File Menu". The choice is portrait or landscape orientations. Tool Palette: Along the left hand side is a palette of four tools, arrow, charge, velocity , and acceleration . The arrow tool is used to select, move, and edit charges. The charge tool is used to create charges by selecting the tool and then click-dragging to make the new charge. Click-dragging to the left will create a positive charge, while click-dragging to the left will create a negative charge. The sig…