Seeing Relativity Title Page

SEEING RELATIVITY & VISUALISING SPECIAL RELATIVITY

(small movie set)

A scene from movie 21, showing an Australian highway with a peculiar speed limit.

C stands for the speed of light. Here, light is artificially slowed down to 1 meter per second, about the speed a person walks.

The slow speed of light in these animations will allow you to see relativity effects in familiar surroundings.

Relativistic effects only become noticeable as your speed gets close to the speed of light.

If you travelled near the real speed of light (300,000 kilometers per second), you'd be on this highway much less than a second, and notice very little.

Understanding the Videos

The two videos show photorealistic representations of reduced c scenes. This means that the speed of light has been slowed down from over one billion kilometres per hour to a speed of only a few meters per second. The consequences of this fiction have been restricted to optical effects, and allows us to see special-relativistic effects not possible in everyday life.

Einstein used this technique in his thought experiments, attempting to imagine moving with a light beam,That ultimately lead to his theory of Special Relativity. Gamow also used a reduced c world in his classic "Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland", though his work is open to incorrect interpretation, and in some editions the illustrations are simply incorrect. This was a common error until the 1960's, with many physicists simply assuming that what was observed in special relativity (notably length contraction) would also be seen. In 1959 R. Penrose (1) observed that a sphere would present a spherical outline to all observers regardless of their relative motion, and J. Terrell (2) demonstrated that distant objects would appear rotated (now known as a Terrell Rotation), not contracted as many had thought.

A scene-by-scene description of the video follows, pointing out the features and intent of each scene. It has been designed to provide the basis for a qualitative lecture on relativistic optics. The explanation assumes a basic understanding of special relativity.

1) R. Penrose, Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc. 55, 137 (1959). 2) J. Terrell, Physical Review 116, 1041 (1959).

For a linked list of the Quicktime movies in this set. (the best place to start)

For explanations prepared by Steve Kliewer

For the scripts used in the Quicktime Movies, written by Eric Muhs & narrators

For original narration & explanations by Craig Savage (be patient, this has lots of still pictures, so it will take a few moments to load)

Credits & Using the CDs