This is a 3-D visualization of a relativistic sphere; use crossed eyes!

You are watching a sphere, which moves with a relativistic speed!

!!You should look at the picture with crossed eyes!!

The speed can be changed from zero up to .99999 of the speed of light. The sphere moves to the right. You can at the same time see the Lorentz contraction and the effect of the finite velocity of light. The Lorentz contraction will transform the sphere to a pancake. The finte velocity of light will shear the pancake. The integrated effect will give the sphere a circular outline!

The line inside the sphere is along the velocity direction.

The sphere is generated by 1000 random points at the surface of the unit-sphere taken from somewhere.

Our stereoscopic skill is such that our two eyes can figure out which points they should put together by only using the local statistics for the distribution of the points.

christer