[Demon_Hunter]

Well?

[jengoesup]

I thought that it was, as you approach the speed of light, stuff begins to contract?

[Peatrical]

Changing point of reference that the human eye can't keep track of I believe.

[bobthecockroach]

Originally Posted by jengoesup

I thought that it was, as you approach the speed of light, stuff begins to contract?

I don't think any of us get close enough to make that relevant.

[nate95366]

I was unaware of the "stretching" phenomenon, myself. I'd have to say that in my experience, things do not appear to stretch when I accelerate. I suppose that if I accelerate quickly enough, things may appear to be "blurry," but that is also true when I'm simply travelling very fast (as opposed to accellerating).

"Lorentz Contraction" is the other thing that's been mentioned in this thread, but that has to do with how points of reference (points of view) work at very high speeds, as has been said.

Nate

[JerryLove]

Depends on the context. In actuality, things get smaller as they move faster. It's a function of how timespace responds to relatavistic speed.

When talking about relatively slow speeds, especially for objects on a screen, they may appear to stretch because of the exposure time of the frame.

A frame on a TV is about 1/60th of a second. An object in that frame will appear to be its size plus whatever distance it has moved in that 1/50th of a second. Add to that, the phospers (or worse, liquid crystals) take time to respond, leaving a "ghost" that can further exagerate this stretching.

In the real world, no such imagery appears. Look at very high-spped film of bulledts in flight, or quick-shutter stills of jets flying by.

[tlj009]

Things can stretch when they accelerate if different parts don't accelerate uniformly. That is why animation sometimes stretch things to indicate a fast acceleration. I don't know why something would "appear to stretch" unless it was plastic or gum or something that actually did stretch.