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[Phys-L] Re: The view from the Enterprise.



Didn't Gamow have something to say in the subject,
with his book, "Mr Tompkins in Wonderland"?

Brian Whatcott

At 07:38 AM 1/17/2006, you wrote:
To return to some physics.....

I'm doing some updates on my animations and want to try and simulate the
view (both forwards and backwards) from a spaceship as is speeds up and
approaches the speed of light.

If I ignore (for a minute) the relativistic effects and consider only the
Doppler shift, I think what one would see is that ahead of you the light is
shifted towards blue--a bit more so in the center of view. As the speed
gets high enough, the light is shifted to the ultraviolet and the stars seem
to go out--starting in the center of view and spreading outwards--like a
hole opening and expanding. Behind, the light is shifted towards red, but I
think it takes higher velocities before being shifted to the infrared.

If that is more or less right--and please correct this if wrong--then what
happens when we add in time dilation and spatial contraction? How would
these effect what is seen by Kirk sitting on the bridge--viewing say a 60
degree arc of space in front of him (seeing for the most part stars in this
galaxy) as the ship (under 'impulse' power only) speeds up from rest to near
the speed of light?

[My 'classical' animation test works very nicely--but I'm sure it is too
simplistic since the purpose of the overall animation is to 'show'
relativistic effects. ;-( ]

Thanks,

Rick

*********************************************************
Richard W. Tarara


Brian Whatcott Altus OK Eureka!
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