Published June 2011
| public
Journal Article
The apparent velocity and acceleration of relativistically moving objects
Abstract
Although special relativity limits the actual velocity of a particle to the velocity of light, c, the observed velocity need not be the same as the actual velocity, as the observer is only aware of the position of a particle at the time in the past when it emitted the detected signal. We consider the apparent speed and acceleration of a particle in two cases, one when the particle is moving with a constant speed and the other when it is moving with a constant acceleration. One curious feature of our results is that in both cases, if the actual velocity of the particle approaches c, then the apparent velocity approaches infinity when it is moving toward the observer and c/2 when it is moving away from the observer.
Additional Information
© 2011 Canadian Science Publishing. Published by NRC Research Press. Received 22 February 2011. Accepted 22 April 2011. Published at www.nrcresearchpress.com/cjp on 20 June 2011. DGCM would like to thank F. Brandt for helpful discussions and R. Macleod for a suggestion.Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 25464
- DOI
- 10.1139/P11-051
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20110928-100715060
- Created
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2011-09-28Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field