
The majority
of BACKLIGHT movies are produced in "slow
light scenarios" similar to Gamow's classic
"Mr Tompkins in Wonderland" - where the
speed of light is reduced to a crawl. In our case, we
adopt a velocity of 5ms-1.
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Download Flicker.mpg
A
flickering streetlight allows us to see the effects
of time-delayed sight.
Download Flash.mpg
A flash
photograph produces an expanding shell of light,
which we can see progress through the interior of a
tram.
Download Onoff.mpg
Switching
a streetlamp on an off also results in an expanding
pool of light, but when combined with time delay, the
parts of the scene illuminated first are not the
parts of the scene that we see first.
Download
Tram_fast.mpg
A tram
passes by at 0.866c (4.3 ms-1).
Download
Tram_through.mpg
We go through
the tram, and extreme distortion is observed.
Download
Tram_bright.mpg
Travelling
with the tram at 0.9c (4.5 ms-1), we can
see the extreme headlight effect.
Download
Tram_Doppler.mpg
Travelling
with the tram at 0.1c (0.5 ms-1), we can
see the Doppler effect, causing the green streetlamps
to appear blue ahead of the tram, and red behind it.
Download
Mercator.mpg
Using a
mercator projection to see all around us, we
accelerate along a street.