Question

I have a physics simulation and it allows you to place area constraints, so that the bodies within will not exit that area. However if an atom goes past one of the “walls” of the area constraint it blows up the physics simulation. Why does it do this?
Update method:

if (!atom.IsStatic)
{
    Vector2 force = Vector2.Zero;
    bool x = false, y = false;
    if (atom.Position.X - atom.Radius < _min.X)
    {
        force = new Vector2(-(_min.X - atom.Position.X), 0);
        if (atom.Velocity.X < 0)
            x = true;
    }
    if (atom.Position.X + atom.Radius > _max.X)
    {
        force = new Vector2(atom.Position.X - _max.X, 0);
        if (atom.Velocity.X > 0)
            x = true;
    }
    if (atom.Position.Y - atom.Radius < _min.Y)
    {
        force = new Vector2(0, -(_min.Y - atom.Position.Y));
        if (atom.Velocity.Y < 0)
            y = true;
    }
    if (atom.Position.Y + atom.Radius > _max.Y)
    {
        force = new Vector2(0, atom.Position.Y - _max.Y);
        if (atom.Velocity.Y > 0)
            y = true;
    }
    atom.ReverseVelocityDirection(x, y);
    if (!atom.IsStatic)
    {
        atom.Position += force;
    }
}

Answer 1

Wouldn’t you know, after about half an hour of mindless hacking at it, i thought of simply not applying the position correction. That fixed it like a charm. For any interested, here’s the updated code:

if (!atom.IsStatic)
{
    if (atom.Position.X - atom.Radius < _min.X && atom.Velocity.X < 0)
    {
        atom.ReverseVelocityDirection(true, false);
    }
    if (atom.Position.X + atom.Radius > _max.X && atom.Velocity.X > 0)
    {
        atom.ReverseVelocityDirection(true, false);
    }
    if (atom.Position.Y - atom.Radius < _min.Y && atom.Velocity.Y < 0)
    {
        atom.ReverseVelocityDirection(false, true);
    }
    if (atom.Position.Y + atom.Radius > _max.Y && atom.Velocity.Y > 0)
    {
        atom.ReverseVelocityDirection(false, true);
    }
}