Lily Pad Pond Ripples: 2D Wave-Equation Water Surface

This 2D companion swaps the orbiting 3D scene for a top-down reading of the same idea: a real discrete wave-equation height field, propagated cell by cell across a grid, with genuine interference when two ripples cross and genuine decay under a tunable damping factor. Floating lily pads sample that field at their own position every frame and bob and tilt with it — no scripted animation, the motion is a direct readout of the physics — while a live panel tracks peak wave height and total surface energy so the invisible math behind the ripples becomes something you can watch rise and fall in real time.