Demonstration of special relativity effects with specialized software

Abstract

A software development project designed to demonstrate some effects of the special theory of relativity (STR) is considered. The software visualizes a uniform relativistic motion of one inertial reference frame, associated with a rocket, relative to another inertial reference frame, associated with the ground. The main idea behind the visualization is to reduce the speed of light down to perceived value, such that relativistic time dilation and relativistic length contraction effects can be explored. The basic mathematical expressions describing the model are given, and the interface of the software is presented. It is expected that the developed software will help to provide intuition behind relativistic mechanics for students starting their immersion in this topic.