Relativity visualized Space Time Travel

Overview visualization of general relativity

The general theory of relativity is the theory of gravitation. Its peculiar predictions like the deflection of light are not part of our everyday life: The gravity of the earth is simply too weak. In the computer simulation we travel to black holes and neutron stars, pictures and movies show what we should see in these high-gravity places.

In the main article Reiseziel: Schwarzes Loch - Visualisierungen zur Allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie (in German) we approach a black hole nearly as far as the event horizon and see what the world looks like from there.

 

Reiseziel: Schwarzes Loch - Didaktisches Material (in German) contains worked exercises on the topics of the main article.

 

Step by Step into a Black Hole also describes the approach towards a black hole. This is the complete simulation with all the computer simulated images and short descriptions.

 

In Flight through a wormhole we show in a movie what a flight through the Tübingen wormhole (used by the Theoretical Astrophysics staff for little getaways) looks like.

 

Light Deflection Near Neutron Stars describes the computation of light deflection near a neutron star, gives an overview over the light paths, presents computer simulated images of the star seen from close by and discusses the importance of light deflection for understanding the pulse shapes of binary X-ray pulsars.

 

The "Real" Einstein Ring is a little contribution to the Einstein cult in the Einstein year and shows the effects of light deflection near a black hole.

 

In the Interactive Black Hole Simulation you can change position and mass of a black hole and so "play" with light deflection.

 

Röntgenpulsare (in German) describes binary X-ray pulsars and the importance of light deflection for the the temporal variation of their X-ray flux.

 

Teaching resources are available for the article about X-ray pulsars: Röntgenpulsare - Didaktisches Material (in German).

 

Four-dimensional ray tracing in a curved spacetime shows several animations that illustrate light deflection near neutron stars and black holes as well as the gravitational collapse of a star.

 

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