Scientists were first able to reproduce the terrell-penrosis effect using laser pulses and precision cameras at an effective light speed of two meters per second.
Scientists from They used a technical ‘trick’ to simulate a light speed of just 2 meters per second (m/s) in the laboratory, recreating the terrell-penrosis effect for the first time.
When an object moves extremely fast, close to the speed of light, certain basic assumptions that are considered certain no longer apply.
This is the main consequence of Albert Einstein’s restricted relativity theory. The object then has a different length from that that is at rest, and time passes differently to it than in the laboratory. All of this has been repeatedly confirmed by experiences.
Terrell-penrosis
However, one interesting consequence of relativity had not yet been observed: the so -called Terrell-Penrosis effect.
In 1959, the physicists James Terrell and Roger Penrose (Nobel Prize winner in 2020) have independently concluded that the fast -moving objects should seem to rotate. However, this effect has never been demonstrated.
Now, a collaboration between the Technical University of Vienna (Tu Wien) and It was first able to reproduce this effect using laser pulses and precision cameras, at an effective light speed of 2 meters per second, the Europa Press agency reported on Monday.
“Let’s imagine that a rocket passes us at 90% of the speed of light. For us, it no longer has the same length as before taking off, but 2.3 times smaller,” explained Peter Schattschneider of the Vienna Technical University in a statement.
This is a relativist contraction of length, also known as Lorentz contraction. However, this contraction cannot be photographed.
“If I wanted to take a photograph of the rocket as it passed, you would have to be aware that the light of different points took different times to arrive in the House,” said Peter Schattschneider.
The light that comes from different parts of the object and reaches the lens or human eye simultaneously is not emitted simultaneously, producing complex optical effects.
This feature is irrelevant in everyday life, even when you photograph an extremely fast car. Even the car of Faster will only travel a small fraction of the distance in the time difference between the light emitted from the opposite side and the side that is facing the photographer. But with a rocket traveling at a speed near the light, this effect would be clearly visible.
Laser pulses and high -speed cameras to recreate the effect
Technically, it is currently impossible to speed up rockets at a speed to which this effect can be observed in a photograph.
However, the group led by Peter Schattschneider found another art -inspired solution: They used extremely short laser impulses and a high -speed chamber to recreate the laboratory effect.
“We move a cube and a sphere through the laboratory and used the high -speed chamber to record laser flashes reflected from different points of these objects at different times,” explains Victoria Helm and Dominik Hornof, the two students who conducted the experience.
If time is calculated correctly, a situation can be created that produces the same results as if the speed of light did not exceed two meters per second.
What was done in this experience for the first time was to include the Factor Time: The object is photographed at many different times. The areas illuminated by the laser flash at the time the light would have been emitted from this point if the speed of light were only 2 m/s are then combined in a single static image. This makes the terrell-penrosis effect visible.
“We combined the static images in small video clips of ultra -rare objects. The result was exactly expected,” said Peter Schattschneider.
“A cube looks twisted, a sphere is still a sphere, but the north pole is in a different place,” he said.
