A trip to the end of the universe and the twin "paradox"

In principal, the twin paradox offers the possibility to go on a trip to the center of our galaxy or even to the end of our universe within life time. In order to be a most comfortable journey the voyaging twin accelerates with one earth gravity. We developed some Java applets to visualize what both twins could really measure, namely time signals and light coming from the surrounding sky.

The applets

Accelerated motion and observation of time signals	Visualization of the stellar sky
For a short introduction click here.	For a short introduction click here.
Download the applet here (310kB);   Shell-script	Download the applet here (4.9MB);   Shell-script
Start the applet with 'java -jar twinparadoxon.jar'.	Start the applet with 'java -jar -Xmx1024m RelativisticSky.jar'.

Links

• T. Müller, A. King, D. Adis
  A trip to the end of the universe and the twin paradox
  Am. J. Phys. 76, 360-373 (2008)

• positional astrometry:
  
  • The Hipparcos Space Astrometry Mission
  • I/239 The Hipparcos and Tycho Catalogues (ESA 1997)
  • Gaia
• colour:
  
  • Spectrum Explorer: Blackbody Radiation Applet
  • Colour Rendering of Spectra - by John Walker
• general:
  • ESA - Astrophysics Missions (sorted by wavelengths)
  • Sun Fact Sheet
  • Stellarium
  • The Constellations and their Stars
  • Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg

Contact

Letzte Änderung 2008-03-13 (muelleta)