Optical Effects of Special Relativity

The video shows 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 one meter 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.

The first scene is a trip down a highway without any relativistic effects. Note the position and orientation of the structures in the desert.

For the next trip, we enable relativistic aberration. As we accelerate, note that the angular compression creates an initial impression of backwards motion. As we pass the sign, it seems to rotate around. This can be viewed as a Terrell rotation, or as angular aberration keeping the sign in our field of view as we pass it. The back walls of the building are also visible, and extreme distortion is visible on all the objects. Note particularly the sky, steadily shrinking down to the vanishing point.

We now enable Doppler shifting. Note that the red desert is blue-shifted ahead through the green and red, causing a rainbow effect. As the blue of the sky is further blue-shifted, it drains of colour. Near the edges of the image, the opposite happens - the sky takes on a reddish hue and the road is drained of colour as the red desert shifts into the infra-red.

With full relativistic effects (now including the headlight effect) the image quickly turns monotone, with objects near the edge of the screen darkened, and the centre brightly illuminated.

The Terrell effect can be illustrated with this flyby of a cube. Note the orientation of the cube change. Also compare it's apparent position with the position indicated on the HUD map. Remember, we are seeing the cube as it was, not as it is.

If we instead fly through the cube, the structures Terrell rotate independently, seeming to turn the cube inside out. Note that even when we have exited the back of the cube, aberration keeps most of it in view.

Another property of aberration is that it preserves circles - that is, a sphere will always present a spherical outline to any observer regardless of their relative motion. We see this demonstrated by flying a camera around the Earth at high speed. Though the camera is very close to the surface, aberration wraps the Earth into our forward field of view. But because we are so close to the earth, we can see only a small portion of its surface - so small regions, about the size of Borneo seem to bulge out and fill the sphere.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Optical
• Effects
• Special
• Relativity

[Postal133]

LUDICROUS SPEEEEEEED!!!

They've gone plaid!

[max5250]

Nice video, but they could find some real speaker instead of this 'reading machine'.

[BrandonFound]

this was beautiful. press mute and listen to good music while the full relativistic desert is unravelling.............Unless you don't already know relativity, then you should just pay normal attention and learn lol.

[jimmyeatskids]

the light at the end of the tunnel...

[Unclevertitle]

Very interesting video made slightly annoying to watch with the generated voice.

[heavymetaldeath4life]

@kuraiketsurui I'm not talking about my human perspective. I'm talking about the photon's point of view (it doesn't have any, but let's assume it does). Photons travelling at c experience 100% time dilation, so time is non-existent for photons.

What you've said about the observer is correct, but I wasn't talking about the observer.

[SrDavidRuiz]

Juas que porquería de vídeo. Como el gran Santiago Camacho puede tener esta puta mierda en su blog. Eso sí es un misterio.

[kuraiketsurui]

@heavymetaldeath4life yes, of course, but that does not make implying that the speed of light is instant any less misleading. from your perspective, it would naturally SEEM instant, but when you arrived at your destination, you would find that time, relative to every single thing around you, would still have passed in such a way as to confirm the very finite rate of c.  c != ∞.

[heavymetaldeath4life]

@kuraiketsurui Time gets slower when you go faster. When you reach c, time stops, so if you were travelling at c and you collided with a star 4 light years away, it would still feel instantaneous for you.

[Keitaro2011]

@kuraiketsurui From the point of view of the traveler, it WOULD be almost instant.

[Morpheus000777]

Why is the speed of light distorting her voice? :p