What is it about?
This is the record of a presentation given where we outlined what would happen if you were to try and take a standard, everyday picture with an idealised camera whilst travelling at a significant fraction of the speed of light. We found that the shutter placement is critical to proper image formation. Further, that for this placement the distortion can be nullified by a hypothetical planar window designed to mimic the effects of a change in reference frame.
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Why is it important?
We had hoped to create a sheet that allowed a viewer to look through it and see the scene beyond as though they were travelling at some significant fraction of the speed of light. When this was shown to not be possible within the technology we were studying we looked further at what, exactly, *would* happen when you try to image things travelling so fast. This presentation and proceeding is the first step to showing exactly how odd the universe would look if you sent your camera flying close to the speed of light.
Perspectives
It was a bummer to not be able to create a device that allowed you to look through it and see things as though you travelled near c, but nonetheless it was neat to be able to fully explore imaging in the realms if stupidly fast speeds. The follow on, more in depth, work that comes after this piece will be cool as we;ll have some pretty pictures to mess with your sense of perspective.
Dr Euan N Cowie
University of Glasgow
Read the Original
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Photography at relativistic speeds
, September 2016, SPIE,
DOI: 10.1117/12.2237850.
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