AnAverageJho
480615
11723
191
Would you want to go as fast as a Formula 1 car?
~300km/h. Pretty fast.
Would you break the speed of sound?
~1220km/h for Mach 1. Pretty fucking fast.
Would you go to ludicrous speeds?
Okay, maybe not that fast...
How about going at the speed of light?
~1'000'000'000km/h or 300'000'000m/s
"Yeah right," I hear you say, "we would've heard about something allowing us to get to the speed of light. How could you get us up to those kinds of speed?"
The answer is simple, my friends: if you can't get to the speed of light, make the speed of light come to you.
This is where this simulation comes in
"A slower speed of light" is a game based on the open source, unity-based engine called OpenRelativity. Most, if not all, of the game was developed by MIT.
The game does literally what you think it does. The game takes special relativity and lowers the constant 'c' as you play along, so the counter-intuitive effects start happening at walking speeds.
What you get is a trippy game that allows people to experience special relativity. All the while remaining simple and without requiring too much computing power.
Effects include, but are not limited to:
Time dilation
Length contraction
Thomas rotation
Headlight effect
Relativistic doppler effect
Relativistic abberation
Download the game: http://gamelab.mit.edu/games/a-slower-speed-of-light/
Available for PC, Mac and Linux.
Luprand
I got so sick just watching that one gif ...
TheSaucyCrumpet
Sorry but that F-18 is doing like 300 kts. Not even close to Mach 1
LoganHendrickson
I've done ~160mph on a sport bike. So sure Id go to 180
eveninthefuturenothingworks
Light speed too slow
Counterfit
Damn, that's a 10 year old F1 gif
Fenderzilla
Ludicrous speed is far faster than light though.
ProJunior
the fast choo choo http://imgur.com/rfw7jrU
StormWingDelta
dang thing crashes on my computer right after it shows the controls. :(
SpazmaticJ
I don't know i just gotta go fast
TheNextHafthorBjornsson
SANIC
SpazmaticJ
I Must accelerate at great velocity
TeamSpeakUser
I got pulled over going ~110 MPH the other day so I'm almost already at the first one :D
Mizuha112
.
AnAverageJho
Good thing no one knows you’re browsing 4 year old posts.
Mizuha112
It really do be like that sometimes
80percentlegs
Fun fact: the speed of sound is not static. It is dependent on the density of the air, which is affected by temperature and altitude.
screechingfilter
i'm gonna play it on acid tommorow
efhawthorne
Yeeee acid games!
TheLastSithposter
Well, how'd it go?
screechingfilter
i didn't get to do it cause i didn't have enough time it lasts 12 hours so you gotta be free all day and i was busy
screechingfilter
ill do it soon though and ill update you
StephaneDoria9
I worked at the UMR Rock Mechanics Explosives Research Lab for a while in college. We'd photograph explosions with a high-speed camera. (1)
jakracer
Sanic
everybodyfreetosayanythingtoanybody
gotta go fast
SpazmaticJ
I Must accelerate at great velocity
herc18
Kurtjmac did a let's play of this.
BrokenLoki
Commenting because I'm on mobile can't download till on laptop omg
TechnOkami
They've gone to plaid...
hardtochoose
omg, i want this and oculus vr!!
Morevna
Having tried occulus, it would be awful for myself. I was getting queasy with it already, mind you still going the speed of light.
Treblaine
My god.... they've gone into plaid!
iLoveItWhenMyFingersSmellLikePussy
Incidentally, I downloaded that game yesterday.. finished it in little over 4 mins..
pairofd
You must have been going pretty fast because it looked like you took 35 years.
LesbianTrappedInManBody
But if you control the speed of light then time is relative to your speed.
HeadWar
So you're saying that for your mom, it seems like I last a long time?
DarthFutuza
Only because of her massive gravitational field.
KrisKringlez
You beautifully confused manbian....
WhereTheWildGooseGoes
What about the speed of time?
RedForty
Time travels at the speed of light, actually.
IAmTheBadW01f
I travel at the speed of time, approximately 60 seconds per minute!
StephanieWasTheTrueVillainOfLazyTown
#4 is that real? Are there actually cameras with such a high fps of recording? that is so cool
eggmuffin
No. Not even close. It would require relativistic shutter speeds, making the shutter too massive for the mechanism to cycle.
NotRick
Heres the TED talk it was presented in http://youtu.be/Y_9vd4HWlVA
StephanieWasTheTrueVillainOfLazyTown
oh my fuck that is amazing
Draesk
Strap me onto a scram jet and I'll be happy.
iapologizeinadvanceforthis
I know of this game. I can't remember is SO played it or the YouTubers he watches played it... Imma check.
iapologizeinadvanceforthis
Ok, imma say that SO played it but never made a video of it. Or he showed me a video of it with not him playing it. My money's on the first.
iapologizeinadvanceforthis
Sorry for keeping you guys in suspense. I know how much you guys care about the mundane details of my life.
Digihippy
8 gigs of ram required, DAMN
HocusP1
I only have 4 and it worked like a charm. It doesn't say required, it says it was tested on a machine with 8
Digihippy
ah, ok, thanks. maybe I have a chance then.
Rumpelstilskin
U da real MVP
TwoBitGreaser
That's exactly what I thought, relative time dilation in an amazingly compressed space. Kryten, you're a mindreader.
IdkManButItKeepsMeUpAtNight
It's cold outside, there's no kind of atmosphere. I'm all alone, more or less.
LordWok
let me fly, far away from here, fun, fun, funnnnnn in the sun, sun, sunnnnnnnnnnn..
wedontlikeeachother
*do do do do do*
Thor561
Did... did you just make a Red Dwarf reference?
TwoBitGreaser
Yea verily, just watched that episode (White Hole) last week. Still classic.
jsmith2034
So what is it?
TwoBitGreaser
Only joking.
TheDoctorAzAJ
Shut up Rimmer.
buzmeister92
Downloaded. Played. Almost vomited due to motion sickness within 2 minutes. 10/10 would puke for science.
picturesarenice
Reminds me of the first time I played Portal. I laughed so hard at you because I know the feels. <3 +1
MaddMind
Same. It was awesome but my brother had to stop watching me play it half way through and it hit me after I finished. Still queezy.
HurricaneWhoDat
http://imgur.com/P3DZSIw
morningamericano
I actually had this game as homework in one of my undergrad physics courses.
pygmypufftrampstamp
I don't usually get motion sick, but I'm definitely nauseous now.
Corona688
He's not joking.
davepermen
Now put that into an oculus rift :)
NuclearBoxcutter
ded
Mattbagels
........his puke?
blackwidowsideboob
No you put the puke in a morpheus headset
msa011
You monster
EdNigma
I love my DK2 but for 5 days after getting it I was unbelievably nauseous.
Justsomedude223
Well if you don't want it...
SubmitsRandomCrap
Thing is, this was very obviously made in Unity, so it would be really easy to make it Rift compatible.
davepermen
True.. It would be fun. For seconds :)
SubmitsRandomCrap
I'd be cool with it! I don't get VR sick.
davepermen
I do. Id still love it :)
cacingcau
Can you change the FOV?
buzmeister92
No. It's like a variable FOV which is what is so motion-sickness inducing.
AnAverageJho
The field of view changes as you speed up. It's one of the effects of going at speeds near the speed of light.
cacingcau
I'm sooo gonna puke for this science. Here we go...
27yoUGLYvirgin
Can someboday explain to me how it is possible to capture the speed of light, with a camera? Doesn't that imply the cam is that fast?
Pgoodso
It's actually a composite of trillions of individual "1D" pictures of repeated pulses at minutely different delays and angles.
27yoUGLYvirgin
Well now it makes sense.
thisismypost
the camera captures several pictures of a diferent ace of light at different intervals,then bringing them together into a seamles "one shot"
27yoUGLYvirgin
So it's not actually capturing the light traveling?
thisismypost
not in one take, no. that's impossible. none the less, it is a cornerstone.
Tylendal
Similar to how you can get a laser dot to "move" across the surface of the moon faster than the speed of light.
27yoUGLYvirgin
Wow that's a mind boggling thought to be honest. Never thought about it this way. Doesn't that mean faster than light travel is possible?
Tylendal
No, it just means that things can take place in intervals faster than the speed of light would usually allow. Keep in mind, the dot 1/2
Tylendal
isn't actually moving, it's just being perceived in different places. The photons that create the dot are still moving at C.
cinsoniTe
It's not that compicated. You get on camera how you point with a flash light at a bottle of coke. Like the guy in the gif above.
27yoUGLYvirgin
And that shows you the beam of light, actually traveling through the bottle? I doubt that. Very much.
randombrain
They're passing the light through a different medium to make it go slower. But yeah, still crazy fast.
eggmuffin
That's a composite shot. If it was one shot, the shutter would have to have moved at relativistic speeds.
27yoUGLYvirgin
Which is my point exactly. So you are saying it's basically a lot of photos and takes added together?
eggmuffin
Yes. Each shot taken at a later stage of the burst's passage.
[deleted]
[deleted]
27yoUGLYvirgin
You're saying we can't actually measure it, just time it when it starts and stops?
AnAverageJho
No, this is really taken by a camera. It's called femto-photography and it involves taking thousands of extremely short exposure shots.
RegalOctopus
went googling a bit, and yep i was wrong. thank you for correcting me op.
eetsumkaus
it's useful to know that "light" in this case is a wavepacket of photons. The wavepacket itself is moving slower than c
27yoUGLYvirgin
Well that's disappointing.
eetsumkaus
that's what she said?
27yoUGLYvirgin
No, she never saw it, in fact she doesn't exist. Unless you're referring to my hand, but that hasn't mastered speech yet.
eetsumkaus
here's a nice tutorial on how to teach your hand to talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLwX7CFDdo8
AnAverageJho
Here's the source of the image, and it does involve one of the fastest cameras in the world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_9vd4HWlVA
tScMat
thanks a lot for this video. just amazing
TonyBalogna
That was the best 11 minutes I have spent in a long time. Thanks for the sauce.
AGrammeIsBetterThanADamn
I worked at the UMR Rock Mechanics Explosives Research Lab for a while in college. We'd photograph explosions with a high-speed camera. (1)
AGrammeIsBetterThanADamn
While obviously the time-scale is still nowhere near lightspeed, explosion flamefronts are scary fast. These cameras don't HAVE shutters-(2)
AGrammeIsBetterThanADamn
(3) the cameras we used burned about 100,000 frames/sec and you run the reel of film at high speed through an open shutter. Expensive shots!
Smayds
The speed of sound is a lot faster than the speed of your ears right now, something something Jaden Smithism
27yoUGLYvirgin
Alrighty then. +1
Solecist
If The Speed Of Light Is So Fast, How Comes I Can See It Move When I Turn On The Light? Think About It.
Bristolian
If The Sound Of Speed Is So Fast Then How Come I Can Rap So Slowly?
Smayds
Genetics. Soz brah
MakeMeACakeOrGrillMeASteak
Oh god you did the CaPiTaLiZaTiOn...
emancipist
Dr Karl explains this in a podcast if you search for it on triple j's website in lamen terms. If keen I'll grab the cast and link it.
27yoUGLYvirgin
I'll find it, thanks
Draesk
As I recall, there was a pretty good TED talk about it up on their site as well for those interested.
alchemist12345
Please do, Im curious.
efemral
Dr Karl, if you don't know, is like Australia's Bill Nye. Only more awesome.
humptyblargh
*laymen's terms. As in, terms for the lay [uneducated] man.
emancipist
so, ironically, me.
zalan26
Really fast camera capture rate + editing to slow it down + possibly making the light pass through water to make it slower.
27yoUGLYvirgin
Does that really slow it down that much, just because it's water?
zalan26
Not sure about numbers but from what i know it does slow it down a "fair bit".
27yoUGLYvirgin
I see.
FunctioningWorkaholic
Nope. They used neither of those methods.
ServitorofAzathoth
Scientists are now capable of slowing light down enough that we can study it a bit better.
27yoUGLYvirgin
So it's not actually the speed of light?
[deleted]
[deleted]
27yoUGLYvirgin
Well alright then, what I mean is it's not actually THE speed of light we usually speak of.
ServitorofAzathoth
I guess not? Physics has never been thing.
nukm4
The speed of light is 300,000,000 m/s not m/h.
adr1an
And I have no idea how they made the conversion from km/h to m/h, disregarding this mistake.
PrfctDrk
Online converters? derp
Kopachris
299792458 m/s
SizeIsntEverything
Don't be a turd
meddlinpenguin
nah, chill bro. it just looks like an 'h', because the light has gotten here yet.
AnAverageJho
Yeah, I fixed it. I made this pretty late at night and I dun goof's.
Smayds
Everyone knows that a billion kilometres per hour equals three hundred million kilometres per hour. DUH
PrfctDrk
No, just everyone knows how to use an online converter lol
dirtyketchup
*meters per second. Sorry, many of imgur don't know mph vs m/h. 186,282 miles per second, if that helps put it into perspective for anyone
rallemus
And not to get all technical, but that's like pretty damn fast!
WhiteWolfSix
Is that more or less than 30 speed?
sha13
If the above doesn't make sense to you: m stands for meters not miles.
ngc7293
It's 299792458 m/s (exactly).
ArdentSlacker
Yeah, but I need to upgrade my video card to get up to that.
Nas160
s/m/h
KingDerby
Didn't you read? The game slowed it down!
JustLivin
Glad this is top comment, that was really bothering me
DamnItOp
Damn it, OP
ShittyConspiracyTheory
That's what the government wants you to think.
DoodlesMcBug
n00bs
captain5
Crucify him over it, it's just a video game promotion thing anyways.
captain5
Why do imgurians do that..this dude worked so hard to mage the post and one error is nitpicked to death. I know he was wrong but I didn't
IfYouCheckMyCommentsYouWillNoticeImNotAFunnyGuy
Actually, 299 792 458 m / s
vidiv
*299792458m/s, in vacuum. Less in atmosphere and less through water. Counterintuitive to soundwaves, that move faster in denser mediums.
Thephedora
And always too fast for the human body un aided to withstand.
vidiv
Yup.
EcchiOjisan
You are mixing the concepts 'speed of light' and 'the speed at which light moves'. The speed of light is constant.
vidiv
Thanks for the correction. The technical terms may be confused as English isn't my first language.
XHavic
Not really, the photons are still moving the same speed, but take more bends and turns through water, making it seem like it's slower
vidiv
As nakerium so eloquently put it, I am now aware of my grave error. Please accept my upvote to you as humble apology.
XHavic
\o/ *Gives cookie*
vidiv
COOKIES! ... waaaait... there's no raisins in these, are there?
sonicpet
You're getting downvoted. Here's an upvote, since the "in vacuum" is a very important factor!
vidiv
Thanks :D Precision is key no matter what, can't ignore details like that.
GreaterDog
Also, they redefined the length of a meter (slightly) to make the speed of light an integer number. Less floating point operations (1/2)
GreaterDog
for simulations. (2/2)
vidiv
I see.. seems weird to redefine a meter, though, and by how much are we talking? A millionth, a billionth? Less, more?
cousteau
It's cool because that's an exact value.
vidiv
Also, don't ask me why I remember that, but I read it in Guinness Book of Records in '97... stuck with me ever since.
nukm4
300,000,000 m/s to 3 significant figures. I think 3sf. is good enough for imgur.
cousteau
It's still nice to know the exact value. (Yes, exact; the definition of meter has been adapted so that c = 299792458 m/s exactly)
vidiv
For short, school level calculations, that's probably an okay number, but for actual scientific calculations, precision is important.
gandalfthegraygray
but im still in school so i use 3x10^8 and 9.81 in physics 9.8 ini mechancs
vidiv
Yes, exactly, school. Where the points don't matter and the rules are made up.
nukm4
Are we making a scientific calculation, or are we posting on imgur? Because this sure looks a lot like imgur to me.
IWRITEEVERYTHINGINCAPS
LET'S CLARIFY, THE SPEED OF LIGHT IS ALWAYS C. IT'S JUST APPEARS SLOWER BECAUSE IT INTERACTS IN VARIOUS WAYS WITH THE ATOMS IN A MEDIUM.
CluelessAmerican
Ha no it doesn't
IJUSTMADETHEVOICEINYOURHEADYELL
ALRIGHT, LET'S START A CLUB.
vidiv
WHY ARE WE YELLING?!
IGiveItAll
BECAUSE USERNAME
Snakecake
sorry to be that guy, but: it is 300,000,000 km/s. light goes from the earth to the moon in just a little more than a second.
RickBlackwell
You ARE that guy but not the way you think. You really think the speed of light is 300 MILLION k per second? It's 300 THOUSAND k per second.
Snakecake
idc. hate me
nukm4
Check again.
freewifi
its 300,000 km/s or 300,000,000 m/s. The moon is not 300 million km away though you are correct that it takes a little over a second.
freewifi
m is meters not miles
KrisTiasMusic
c is dependend on µ_0 = 4*pi*10^(-7) H/m and ɛ_0 = 8.85419*10^(-12) F/m. c = 1/(sqrt(µ_0*ɛ_0)) = 2.9979*10^8 m/s ≈ 300.000.000 m/s
dhelsan
If you're gonna be the "UMM, ACTUALLY GUISE..." guy, at least research.
Snakecake
1. it was not my intention to be that guy. ok well maybe it was. 2. i was too lazy to research. and 3. i uh um.... DANGIT. uh... reason? hm
spjass
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=speed+of+light
Snakecake
dayum son! where did u find this? :D
spjass
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=let+me+google+that+for+you
Snakecake
THX