Transcript for SMIL Relativity Presentation

Description:
An animation of a car and a clock.
Narrator:
Someone watching a car accelerate toward light speed would see something very strange. It would seem as though the car itself were getting shorter and that time for the person in the car was slowing down.
Description:
The car shrinks.
Narrator:
However, you wouldn't see these effects until the car began to approach the speed of light. At 90% of the speed of light, the car would appear to shrink to 44% of its usual length.
Description:
An animation of a lightwave.
Narrator:
This thought experiment answered Einstein's old question about what he would see if he traveled along with a beam of light. He simply couldn't make the trip, for at the speed of light, length would contract to zero and time would stop.
Description:
An animation of Albert Einstein running alongside a lightwave. He keeps up for a moment, then falls behind. The lightwave breaks up in a series of large colored dots.