Interactive three-dimensional simulations & visualizations

Visualizing the beauty in physics and mathematics

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Project maintained by zhendrikse Hosted on GitHub Pages — Theme by mattgraham

Zeger's home / Science home /

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day. — Albert Einstein

Special & general relativity

If you want to learn about the special theory of relativity, check out the Special Relativity For Dummies: An Intuitive Introduction. On the same site, you will find that their General Relativity For Dummies: An Intuitive Introduction is of an equally exceptional level of quality.

Special relativity

Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality. — Hermann Minkowski.

Galilean transformations & lightcone animation

In Euclidean space-time, we use the classic Galilean transformation between different inertial frames.

         

A three-dimensional lightcone is animated by simultaneously sending off both a photon and a spaceship from the origin.

Length contraction

Visualization of length contraction for a relativistic particle.

Observers in inertial frames equipped with photon clocks.

Lorentz transformation of electromagnetic fields

Illustration of the Lorentz transformation of a magnetic field around a wire.

General relativity

Since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity, I do not understand it myself anymore. — Albert Einstein

Local space-time near Earth & black hole ray tracing

Local space-time near Earth. This really is space-time, i.e. the black lines represent a spatial coordinate, whereas the red lines the time axis!

Black hole image generated with ray tracing techniques, hence it may take some time for the page to render!

Spaghettification & Mercury's perihelion precession

One of the three classic tests of general relativity: Mercury's perihelion precession.

A fictional astronaut, passing within a black hole's event horizon, is "stretched like spaghetti". — Stephen Hawking, from A Brief History of Time.

Schwarzschild space-time

Visualization of a comet moving in Schwarzschild space-time.

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