Visualizing Flat Spacetime: Viewing Optical versus Special Relativistic Effects
Abstract
A simple visual representation of Minkowski spacetime appropriate for a student with a background in geometry and algebra is presented. Minkowski spacetime can be modeled with a Euclidean 4-space to yield accurate visualizations as predicted by special relativity theory. The contributions of relativistic aberration as compared to classical pre-relativistic aberration to the geometry are discussed in the context of its visual representation.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1201.3671,
title = {Visualizing Flat Spacetime: Viewing Optical versus Special Relativistic Effects},
author = {Don V. Black and M. Gopi and F. Wessel and R. Pajarola and F. Kuester},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1201.3671},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
14 pages, 11 color figures, and is accompanied by 6 animated videos. The videos can be downloaded from here: http://www.hypervisualization.com/videos/black/ The original article appeared in American Journal of Physics, June 2007, and can be found here: http://ajp.aapt.org/resource/1/ajpias/v75/i6/p540_s1?isAuthorized=no