A snapshot of relativistic motion

Autor(en)

Dominik Hornof, Victoria Helm, Enar de Dios Rodriguez, Thomas Juffmann, Philipp Haslinger, Peter Schattschneider

Abstrakt

In 1959, Roger Penrose and James Terrell independently predicted that the Lorentz contraction of fast moving objects is not visible in a snapshot photograph. Rather, the object would appear rotated. This surprising effect has never been tested experimentally. Here we demonstrate the Terrell-Penrose effect in a laboratory setting. Using ps-laser pulses and ultra-fast photography with gating times as short as 300 ps, we achieve a virtual reduction of the speed of light to less than 2 m/s, enabling the visualization of relativistically moving objects in real time. Our results comprise simulations and experimentally synthesized snapshots of a sphere and a cube, which are animated to create a slow-motion effect for velocities close to the speed of light. An extension of our method to otherwise unobservable relativistic phenomena, e. g. the famous “train” thought experiment revealing the constancy of the speed of light, appears feasible.

Organisation(en)

Department für Strukturbiologie und Computational Biology, Quantenoptik, Quantennanophysik und Quanteninformation

Externe Organisation(en)

Technische Universität Wien, Kunstuniversität Linz

Journal

Communications Physics

Band

8

Anzahl der Seiten

5

ISSN

2399-3650

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-025-02003-6

Publikationsdatum

05-2025

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

103028 Relativitätstheorie, 103021 Optik

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Allgemeine Physik und Astronomie

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/72cdce17-8a2c-4b5f-bf50-50ab83c69da9