The Nature of Code

2 Forces

Don’t underestimate the Force.

—Darth Vader

Calder installation at the New Gallery, Charles Hayden Memorial Library, MIT, Cambridge, MA, 1950 (photo by Ezra Stoller)

Alexander Calder was a 20th-century American artist known for his kinetic sculptures that balance form and motion. His “constellations” were sculptures consisting of interconnected shapes and wire that demonstrate tension, balance, and the ever-present pull of gravitational attraction.

In the final example of Chapter 1, I demonstrated how to calculate a dynamic acceleration based on a vector pointing from a circle on the canvas to the mouse position. The resulting motion ...