system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why don't game designers just use real world physics equations in games?

Since we have so many well-established physics equations explaining gravity, motion, and just various forces overall, why don't game programmers just create their worlds using actual physics equations? Since a computer/console is just going through the code and essentially solving equations, wouldn't it just be easier to define all of the parts of the equation and have the video game world work that way? Sorry if I'm just completely off on my assumptions as well. I just started my Informatics major.
gpt
They do. It's often tweaked a bit to make for better gameplay, but they are based on real world physics equations.

They're not perfectly accurate because of processing power limitations. It's hard to accurately simulate lots of complicated objects, so some simplifications are made. For example most game physics only deals with completely rigid bodies. Soft bodies which can compress and stretch (such as fleshy humans parts) are modelled using rigid bodies connected together with joints and springs.

There's also the fact that they do it using discrete maths rather than continuous. The game is split into distinct frames, and it uses the results of the previous frame, and works out where things will be the next frame based on their velocity, acceleration, other objects they have collided with etc. Doing it this way means sometimes it's sometimes glitchy, especially if things are moving fast. A common thing that goes wrong is that an object is moving so fast it can completely go through another object because it's so fast that there is no frame where it would be intersecting the other object, so the simulation doesn't realise it should have collided with it. Some physics engines can deal with this though.