Here's a great example with something people have a really hard time wrapping their heads around too.
Let's say that you have a train moving at a constant velocity, v. Then a switch is flipped and turns on a light that is in the exact center of the room. Which wall does the light hit first? [0]
Seen from on the train[1]: might as well be seen as if you were in a stationary room. The light hits both walls at the same time.
Seen from off the train[2]: The speed of light is constant. Since the train is also moving the light can't travel at v+c. So it hits the back wall, which is traveling towards the light at v, first.
This is a famous thought experiment and in practice would be difficult to perform, even with such a camera. But I'm saying it because it illustrates that we can actually observe relativistic effects. Things act extremely differently than what we're used to when small or moving fast. Assuming you had a really high resolution, something like length contraction could be observed, and measured, in normal conditions.
So there are actually a lot of weird things going on that we wouldn't be aware of. These ultra high speed cameras allow us to observe some of these strange phenomena.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 13.3 ms ] threadLet's say that you have a train moving at a constant velocity, v. Then a switch is flipped and turns on a light that is in the exact center of the room. Which wall does the light hit first? [0]
Seen from on the train[1]: might as well be seen as if you were in a stationary room. The light hits both walls at the same time.
Seen from off the train[2]: The speed of light is constant. Since the train is also moving the light can't travel at v+c. So it hits the back wall, which is traveling towards the light at v, first.
This is a famous thought experiment and in practice would be difficult to perform, even with such a camera. But I'm saying it because it illustrates that we can actually observe relativistic effects. Things act extremely differently than what we're used to when small or moving fast. Assuming you had a really high resolution, something like length contraction could be observed, and measured, in normal conditions.
So there are actually a lot of weird things going on that we wouldn't be aware of. These ultra high speed cameras allow us to observe some of these strange phenomena.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Traincar...
[2] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Traincar...