stretching time and space at the speed of light: videos of special relativity

(sorry ... this post slipped out uncompleted last time ...)
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this video will blow your minds:

C-ship Mission: Trans-Lattice Shuttle
http://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/movies/shuttle.mpg

from the webpage:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/shuttle.html

>> In the [previous] movie ..., we continued to accelerate
>> all the way through the Lattice and blasted out of the
>> far side still piling on velocity. A more reasonable
>> mission would be to accelerate until we reach the
>> half-way point, cut the drive and turn around, and then
>> decelerate until we come to a stop at the other side of
>> the Lattice. We could even imagine, looping the movie,
>> that we're operating a shuttle service between stations
>> at opposite sides of the Lattice.
>>
>> In this movie, we show a view of the Lattice accounting
>> for Lorentz contraction, aberration, and Doppler shift
>> every 10 days into the mission. The 180 degree turn at
>> the midpoint is shown in real time.

here's the page for that previous movie:

C-ship Mission: Flying through the Lattice
http://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/flythru.html

>> Here's a movie which illustrates all of the effects
>> of special relativity at once. Spacetime looks weird
>> from oblique angles, so don't worry if what you see
>> looks puzzling the first time through. I spent the
>> better part of a week doing the math to convince myself
>> this was what one would actually see.
>>
>> This movie was made by the artificial intelligence
>> commanding the C-ship Michelson. The Michelson's
>> mission is to fly through the Lattice Galaxy, starting
>> at rest with respect to one face and accelerating at
>> a constant 100 metres per second per second until
>> reaching the other side of the Lattice, 64000
>> light-years from the point of departure.
>>
>> To fully appreciate this movie, you need an MPEG player
>> that allows you to advance, frame by frame, through
>> the movie.

and this is the "lattice galaxy" they're talking about:

C-ship: The Lattice Galaxy
http://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/lattice.html

>> Let's begin our exploration of the strange laws of space
>> and time in one of the strangest corners of the universe,
>> the Lattice galaxy.
>>
>> <picture of lattice galaxy with Milky Way next to it>
>>
>> Since we'll be exploring how space and time stretch
>> when you travel at velocities approaching the speed
>> of light, it's handy to have a large scale measuring
>> stick, and the Lattice galaxy will do nicely. ...
>>
>> The Lattice is huge, 64,000 light-years along each edge;
>> a typical spiral galaxy like the Milky Way is shown
>> alongside for comparison. The spacing between the
>> joints, 8,000 light years, is roughly one quarter the
>> distance of the Sun from the centre of the Milky Way.
>> The scale of the Lattice, while mind-numbing, will
>> come in handy when we feel the need for speed.

-monz

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