Want to see something really neat?
 

I learn visually. It just makes more sense to me if I can see what's happening to understand why something is happening.

That being said, on Fark today I went to this website and took a trip at nearly the speed of light.

I've read book after book and seen picture after picture and finally after some hard work kind of understand how light moves. It would have been so much easier if I had seen this video first. It's so much easier to build a book shelf when you know what the book shelf is supposed to look like.

Neat. :) And that's also pretty crazy.

This thread certainly does deliver what it promises. I love science as long as it isn't sterilized and pre-chewed for classroom use.

Awesome thread.. this is precisely why science fascinates me so much.

thanks....

it's exactly as it was described to me by my physics professor, but it does look much better than it was described.

That was cool, definetely worth the time to go check it out! The distortion is just how I imagined it would be!

Should you not also be able to see the doppler shift? (Blue shift in this case)

SHouldn't it be a little faster? :p

hilarity!

I hope you're not serious though, unless I'm REALLY way off base. I thought they were slowing the effect down to simulate what travelling at the speed of light would have on your surroundings.

Now I'm confused. :confused:

yes, they were, I was teasing.

I'm no physicist, but it seems to me if there was a shift it wouldn't be all that noticeable except for the objects furtherest away. I mean, you're travelling at 300,000 km/sec, so, I would imagine the shift would be all but negligent except when concerning objects far enough away to matter.

I thought so at first too, but now after thinking about it, I think the slowing has more to do with time dilation rather than the videographer slowing the effect.

I have no frame of reference since my considerable ass has never travelled at light speed, so I could be completely off base about the whole thing.

Someone jump into Tilted Knowledge and round us up some physicists. :D

guthmund: thanks for posting that link! It was much more helpful than the books I have read. I guess I'm in the same spot: to see it happening makes more sense. :)
Awesome find. :thumbsup:

I love science like this... just for the sake of science itself and learning...

Thanks for the link guthmund, I'm going to pass it along to a bunch of friends who'll love this.

Oh thank god, so I'm not a complete imbecile then. :thumbsup:

Cool, I get the same effect after a few too many at the pub.

I'm not a physicist either, but the doppler effect relies on relative velocity, not distance. In parts of the simulation, it shows the viewer moving at up to 0.98 c as compared to the stationary buildings. This would result in a noticable shift in the light the viewer sees towards the blue end of the spectrum.

I believe you're right.

I got to reading quite a bit about this after I posted because I just didn't want to go with a gut feeling. I think you're right, there should have been a blue shift.

Wait, what if you look back?

Ow, brain hurts....