C The Speed of Light

Inspiration

We got inspired by General Relativity hence we want to make something fun, quick to understand for anyone who wants to study Physics! Physics concepts are usually couched in hard to understand language, and the static nature of graphs makes phenomena hard to visualise. Through this visualisation, we hope that students can better understand the transition the graph makes as the speed of an object approaches the speed of light.

What it does

We show the spacetime graph as the speed of the inertial frame of reference is controlled by the user. The speed of the inertial frame of reference begins at zero, and grid lines are perpendicular. By moving the slider, the user can change the percentage of the speed of light of the frame of reference. This applies the Lorentzian Transform, and the grid lines stretch to represent the new coordinates.

How we built it

We use p5.js and javascript for the function and the design is built by HTML and CSS.

Challenges we ran into

We had to get ourselves familiar with the details of p5.js transforms, as well as read closely on physics theory in order to accurately depict the transform and explain it properly.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We managed to get the transform to function properly, as well as show the light cone and the axes, with the full explanation for the more physics-interested.

What we learned

We learnt about the matrix transform that results in the change of the grid to properly visualise the Lorentzian Transformation, implementing the mathematics into our code with an elegant solution.

What's next for C The Speed of Light

We plan on creating a proper measure to keep track of the time dilation and length contraction phenomena. We also plan to be able to input a specific coordinate and see how the visualisation of that coordinate changes from the origin.