Beginning the projects
I finished reading the description of the GADGET-2 code and I’ve read a few more annual reviews. I’ve been spending a lot of time becoming more familiar with C++ and the compiler that I’m using. I’ve also been looking for different plotting options. I’ve managed to write a very simple code for tracing the orbit of a particle in a central force field, so technically I’m finished with the first of the three projects, but I want to spend tomorrow and possibly Saturday making improvements to the code. I want to implement a leap-frog integrator and possibly use pointers instead of the messy syntax I currently have. I would also like to have the program automatically plot the data. Currently the output is a CSV file with coordinates. Here’s a plot of the output after about 4.5 orbits:

