Links To Sites On

Light & Special Relativity

Links About Vision
(Either referred to in class or related.)
The Herman Grid Illusion and other optical illusions.
Color mixing tool. Start with red, then add green. Then, look closely at your computer screen until the red and green reappear. You may need a magnifying glass.
Tests for color blindness from Ask A Biologist.
Color vision in animals. Here's a table listing the ability of different animals to see color from Ask A Biologist.

**LIGHT**
Electromagnetic Spectrum Charts: A Simple One and A Dense One	The simple chart provides comparisons to practical things and common applications. You'll need to use the "expand" button on your Adobe Reader to look at the dense chart.
Can You See Heat? See here for a discussion.	This is pretty good. Skip the music intro (unless you don't want to...) and start hitting "swap" when you get to the camera image. Some of the pictures are not surprising, but some are. The mouse controls a magnifying glass if you place it over an image.
What is color?	And just for fun, here are some optical illusions.
Animations	These are from a course at the University of Saskatchewan similar to ours. In fact, this class offers a complete set of course notes and tutorials. (My thanks to Professor Hirose.)

Einstein	Part of NOVA's web site for science education.
Einstein Online	Biographies, "Relativity for 6th Graders", ...
Relatively Simple	A tutorial on relativity based around a series of thought experiments.
Problems	This site treats some interesting problems including the classic "paradoxes" of special relativity.
Light Cone	Somewhat more advanced treatment than we've done. Has animations and many good links.
LINKS	An enormous link list. Sorts links by location, level of expertise, and sub-topic. Has a large beginner section.
FAQs	Frequently asked questions about special relativity. Includes the following issues raised in class: Can You See the Lorentz-Fitzgerald Contraction? The Barn and the Pole The Twin Paradox
Seeing Special Relativity	Provides pictures and movies illustrating how things look if you are moving near the speed of light. (The author pretended the speed of light was not very large so you wouldn't have to go very fast to see the effects. Read here for details.)