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A Slower Speed of Light | MIT Game Lab
A Slower Speed of Light is a first-person game prototype in which players navigate a 3D space while picking up orbs that reduce the speed of light in increments. Custom-built, open-source relativistic graphics code allows the speed of light in the game to approach the player’s own maximum walking speed. Visual effects of special relativity gradually become apparent to the player, increasing the challenge of gameplay. These effects, rendered in realtime to vertex accuracy, include the Doppler effect (red- and blue-shifting of visible light, and the shifting of infrared and ultraviolet light into the visible spectrum); the searchlight effect (increased brightness in the direction of travel); time dilation (differences in the perceived passage of time from the player and the outside world); Lorentz transformation (warping of space at near-light speeds); and the runtime effect (the ability to see objects as they were in the past, due to the travel time of light).
Relativistic Baseball
What would happen if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90% the speed of light? - Ellen McManis Let’s set aside the question of how we got the baseball moving that fast. We'll suppose it's a normal pitch, except in the instant the pitcher releases the ball, it magically accelerates to 0.9c.
NASA
Fighter jet and spaceship cockpits seem to fascinate me and that of the Soyuz is no exception; unfortunately there are no detailed diagrams or manuals publically-available on the Internet that I know of! The following diagrams are ones I have collected from various places, and are the best I can do at the moment. The Soyuz TM Information Display System is called the “Neptune”, «Нептун»; for the TMA it is the Neptune ME.
RuSpace | Soyuz console
News Blog: Quantum weirdness wins again: Entanglement clocks in at 10,000+ times faster than light
No matter how many times researchers try, there's just no getting around the weirdness of quantum mechanics. In the latest attempt, researchers at the University of Geneva in Switzerland tried to determine whether entanglement—the fact that measuring a property of one particle instantly determines the property of another—is actually transmitted by some wave-like signal that's fast but not infinitely fast . Their test involved a series of measurements on pairs of entangled photons (particles of light) that were generated in Geneva (satellite view at left) and then split apart by optical fiber to two villages 18 kilometers (11 miles) apart where the team had set up photon detectors. (In 2007, researchers transmitted entangled light 144 kilometers between two of the Canary Islands .) The idea in the new experiment is that the photons in each entangled pair are hitting the distant detectors simultaneously, so there's no time for them to exchange a signal.
If possible, the first images in each set will be true-color, as you would see them with your own eyes. Most images will either be true-color or monochrome (black and white), unless stated otherwise. Many images can be vastly enlarged by clicking on them and choosing a larger size from the Flickr page. Downloading them may allow even larger sizes.
State of the Nation
The Sounds of Pulsars
A pulsar is a highly magnetised neutron star, with a radius of 10-15 km, having somewhat greater mass than the Sun which has a radius of approximately 1 million km. Radiation is beamed out along the magnetic poles and pulses of radiation are received as the beam crosses the Earth, in the same manner as the beam from a lighthouse causes flashes. Being enormous cosmic flywheels with a tick attached, they make some of the best clocks known to mankind. These sounds directly correspond to the radio-waves emitted by the brightest pulsars in the sky as received by some of the largest radio telescopes in the world. To listen to the pulses of a radio pulsar, click on its arrow icon.
Single-bubble sonoluminescence - A single, cavitating bubble. Long exposure image of multi-bubble sonoluminescence created by a high-intensity ultrasonic horn immersed in a beaker of liquid Another long exposure image of sonoluminescence in a beaker of water. Each bright blue dot is an individual bubble that is emitting light. Sonoluminescence is the emission of short bursts of light from imploding bubbles in a liquid when excited by sound .
Sonoluminescence
Home | Practical Physics
This website is for teachers of physics in schools and colleges. It is a collection of experiments that demonstrate a wide range of physical concepts and processes. Some of the experiments can be used as starting-points for investigations or for enhancement activities. Many have links to carefully selected further reading and all include information and guidance for technicians. Physics is a practical science.
Paul A.M. Dirac - Biography
Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac was born on 8th August, 1902, at Bristol, England, his father being Swiss and his mother English. He was educated at the Merchant Venturer's Secondary School, Bristol, then went on to Bristol University. Here, he studied electrical engineering, obtaining the B.Sc. (Engineering) degree in 1921. He then studied mathematics for two years at Bristol University, later going on to St. John's College, Cambridge, as a research student in mathematics.
UDF SkyWalker V1.0
Click-drag green circle to pan around the whole image. The Ultra Deep Field obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope is the deepest view into the sky by humankind to date. This image combines 800 frames with a total exposure time of 1 million seconds. The 10.000 galaxies that are visible have distances out to times where the universe was just 800 million years old, one seventeenth of its current age. For more info check the UDF press release at spacetelescope.org . For a wider but less deep view visit the GEMS Skywalker .Water, good ol' H 2 O, seems like a pretty simple substance to you and me. But in reality, water - the foundation of life and most common of liquid - is really weird and scientists actually don't completely understand how water works. Here are 5 really weird things about water:
5 Really Weird Things About Water
An updated version of this lesson is available at Visionlearning: Atomic Theory & Ions & Isotopes In the last lesson we learned that atoms were particles of elements, substances that could not be broken down further. In examining atomic structure though, we have to clarify this statement. An atom cannot be broken down further without changing the chemical nature of the substance. For example, if you have 1 ton, 1 gram or 1 atom of oxygen, all of these units have the same properties.