Recent content by Sciencemaster

Maybe you could compare the redshift to a classical analogue--although the survey might only be able to show Hubble's law at best rather than comparing relativistic redshift to its Newtonian counterpart.... My point was more that there might be objects moving at relativistic velocities that...

Also, a thought--earlier in the thread, it was discussed that stars we observe are moving pretty slow compared to the speed of light. What about galaxies? I imagine it's possible to see some of those with a university observatory, and given Hubble's law and the fact that they aren't part of...

Ah. They'd be near the sun and the eclipse would be over. So we couldn't see it because it would be in the sky during the day. So we'd need to wait roughly 4-6 months until we were on the other side of the sun so Raleigh scattering wouldn't block it out.

That makes sense. I figured it'd help to provide context to my current situation. As for why, I imagine it's because after a month, the Earth will be at a different position/rotation relative to the sun, so the amount of lensing will change (i.e. classically, we'd only see the star move across...

I know these questions were rhetorical/not meant for me, but I figured I'd give a bit of background anyway. In my specific instance (although it may not be true if someone else is in my position), the school is *close*, but not quite in the path of totality (maybe a couple of counties...

Oops! My bad, good catch. Too late to edit it, though... :(

Yeah, you're right. I just looked it up and the fastest star ever seen moves at roughly 8% of c, and even those moving at ~600 km/s are considered hypervelocity stars (and this is MUCH larger than other objects like comets and stuff). My initial thought was that some would just happen to be...

Oh, I had imagined there would be a bunch of stars outside our solar system moved much faster than that relative to us. As for comparing the sun's orbit to other planets, do you mean to indirectly show relativity or just to find its velocity? I'm pretty sure it's the latter but I'm a bit unclear...

I see. When you put it that way, that makes complete sense. It did take several decades even *after* SR was proposed to collect the more direct evidence. I had hoped that since we know exactly what to look for today and have better and more accessible materials available, a layman (or at least...

This semester, I'm taking a class on Observational Astronomy which requires us to perform observations for a final project over the course of roughly a month (mid-March to Mid-april, although it could be a bit longer or shorter). As we get to choose the project, I'd like to take this opportunity...

Alright, thank you for the information! Maybe I’ll see if I can borrow some equipment… [Mentor Note: Cross-post has been edited out of this post]

Would you mind explaining why the speed of the particles wouldn't vary with energy in the relativistic case? I imagine it has something to do with a relationship between decay rate and energy causing some particles with lower velocities to decay before reaching the detector in the Newtonian...

That variation of the cosmic ray experiment shows promise. Plus, with that configuration, you could also take it to a mountain and measure the difference in events detected as well, giving one two possible SR experiments with one setup. Would it be at all reasonable to get some sort of such...

That seems like a good idea. At a glance, I worry that this might be a bit too indirect of a test of SR to build intuition and such, but that might be because I'm not *too* familiar with the effect, and it definitely has potential. I know it shows the difference in the frequency of emitted...

Alright, that is a cool experiment that would definitely fit the criteria, at least for GR. The main problem here is that I don't have any Cesium clocks, and they seem pretty expensive for the average person (myself included)...