jack@cs.hw.ac.uk (Jack Campin) (12/08/87)
A long time ago I read about a program developed at MIT that produced
images of the way ordinary scenes (a street) would look at speeds nearing
c. I don't know if it used a plotter or calligraphic display, but it was
so long ago that whatever it did should surely be possible now in real time
on a Mac or equivalent. Does anything like that exist? - a sort of flight
simulator for cosmic ray particles, that would let you define a scene
with a 3D graphics editor and then look at it at various fractions of c.
(Colour would be a nice optional extra). The MIT program produced weirdly
drooping lampposts.
More ambitiously: what about general relativity? Here I am thinking about
some of the descriptions in Kaufmann's "The Cosmic Frontiers of General
Relativity" about how the world would look from near a black hole.
--
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Mail: Jack Campin, Computing Science Department, University of Glasgow,
17 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8QQ, Scotland (041 339 8855 x 6045)leonard@bucket.UUCP (Leonard Erickson) (12/17/87)
A long time ago, I read a book dealing with Relativity, interstellar travel and like subjects. In it was a form of the relativistiic Doppler shift equation that I have seen nowhere else. I had copied it down but a few years later it and a number of other useful but obscure formulas were lost when someone stole my briefcase and the notebook with the formulas. What this formula (or pair of formulas, it's been 20 years and things are rather fuzzy) gave was not only the frequency shift, but the angular shift for objects that were at an angle to the direction of travel. As I never got much past algebra it is somewhat impratical for me to attempt to derive the equation myself. If someone has such a formula would they please mail it to me? Thank you. -- Leonard Erickson ...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard CIS: [70465,203] "I used to be a hacker. Now I'm a 'microcomputer specialist'. You know... I'd rather be a hacker."
tedj@hpcilzb.HP.COM (Ted Johnson) (12/19/87)
/ hpcilzb:comp.sys.mac / leonard@bucket.UUCP (Leonard Erickson) / 10:23 pm Dec 16, 1987 / A long time ago, I read a book dealing with Relativity, interstellar travel and like subjects. In it was a form of the relativistiic Doppler shift equation that I have seen nowhere else. I had copied it down but a few years later it and a number of other useful but obscure formulas were lost when someone stole my briefcase and the notebook with the formulas. What this formula (or pair of formulas, it's been 20 years and things are rather fuzzy) gave was not only the frequency shift, but the angular shift for objects that were at an angle to the direction of travel. As I never got much past algebra it is somewhat impratical for me to attempt to derive the equation myself. If someone has such a formula would they please mail it to me? Thank you. -- Leonard Erickson ...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard CIS: [70465,203] "I used to be a hacker. Now I'm a 'microcomputer specialist'. You know... I'd rather be a hacker." ----------
tedj@hpcilzb.HP.COM (Ted Johnson) (12/19/87)
>If someone has such a formula >would they please mail it to me? I'd also like a copy! -Ted (UUCP: ...hplabs!hpcea!hpcilzb!tedj)
fosler@inmet.UUCP (12/21/87)
There does exist an relativity program for both the PC and MAC. The program is call Relativity, and it allows you display different objects at speeds up to C. Neither version supports color, but the MAC version does support big screen monitors. The program comes with a number of predefined 3-D objects, including a street with lampposts, and yes, the lampposts do droop as you pass down the street. If you would like more information on the program, contact Piricle Development Company 11140 Rockvill Pike Suite L-314 Rockville, MD 20852 or call (301) 468-5734 The cost of either version is $19.95 + 1.60 s&h(US) 3.40 (outside US). The PC version requires CGA. The program does come with a relativity tutorial.