"A Slower Speed of Light is a first-person game prototype in which players navigate a 3D space while picking up orbs that reduce the speed of light in increments. Custom-built, open-source relativistic graphics code allows the speed of light in the game to approach the player's own maximum walking speed. Visual effects of special relativity gradually become apparent to the player, increasing the challenge of gameplay. These effects, rendered in realtime to vertex accuracy, include the Doppler effect (red- and blue-shifting of visible light, and the shifting of infrared and ultraviolet light into the visible spectrum); the searchlight effect (increased brightness in the direction of travel); time dilation (differences in the perceived passage of time from the player and the outside world); Lorentz transformation (warping of space at near-light speeds); and the runtime effect (the ability to see objects as they were in the past, due to the travel time of light). Players can choose to share their mastery and experience of the game through Twitter. A Slower Speed of Light combines accessible gameplay and a fantasy setting with theoretical and computational physics research to deliver an engaging and pedagogically rich experience."
All About G ForcesWhat's behind gravity forces, and how much of them can we take?
By Peter TysonPosted 11.01.07NOVAA few summers ago I took my then nine-year-old daughter on a glider ride. Midway through, as we soared over a coastal landscape, I casually asked the pilot whether he could do any tricks. Without a word, he threw the plane into a dive. We were accelerating straight towards the ground. My daughter and I shouted and grabbed the armrests. Suddenly we were hit with that thrill-inducing pressure familiar from rollercoasters-tensed facial muscles, light-headedness, a sense of altered reality.
GPS is handy for finding a route, but it might be able to solve fundamental questions in physics too. An analysis of GPS satellite orbits hints that Earth is heavier than thought, perhaps due to a halo of dark matter.