Via email, Reference Games, featuring two versions of the classic video game "Asteroids" (well, it's a classic if you're my age...). The cool wrinkle: light speed in the game is set to be very low, and you can toggle back and forth between the ship frame and the frame of the background stars, to see relativistic effects.
With or without length contraction, I'm still terrible at video games, but it's an amusing time-waster, and more plausibly work-related (for me) than playing poker on Facebook...
Physical Science
Comments
# 1 | apy | March 12, 2008 10:13 AM
I find it easier to play if my reference frame is the ship (that is where the ship is stationary in the center?) I'm not sure if that is just because my ship isn't flying all over the screen.
# 2 | smm | March 12, 2008 4:31 PM
Thanks for the plug, Chad. I might also add that it's not just length contraction on display, but time dilation as well. (not in the asteroids version, but the sandbox and nine-ball game.)