Spacetime Travel

Goals

• Relativistic visualization. We develop visualizations of relativistic scenes from a first-person point of view using the ray-tracing method of computer graphics.

• An introduction to general relativity using no more than elementary mathematics. We develop ways of teaching general relativity in school and in undergraduate physics. The focus is on grade 10 (age 16 years) and on university programs for pre-service physics teachers.

Main activities

• Creation of both interactive and non-interactive visualizations. Examples: Fall into a black hole, interactive flight simulator with relativistic speeds.
• Creation and use of sector models. We have developed sector models as a novel way of representing curved spaces and curved spacetimes in a way that is coordinate-free and therefore amenable to geometric intuition. We develop approaches to the theoretical concepts of general relativity (in particular geodesics and curvature) using sector models as tools. New sector models are created to visualize the properties of specific spacetimes.
• Design of teaching units and tests in school and at university.
• Empirical studies: students' concepts on geometry, learning outcomes of model-based learning

Results

• Teaching resources and research results are made available online at https://www.spacetimetravel.org. (German version https://www.tempolimit-lichtgeschwindigkeit.de)