New trial of teaching material for education; The World near the light speed and virtual reality, Star bow

Ueshima, Yutaka

The theory of special relativity found by Einstein is famous. It is one of the most important theories for our research on interactions between ultra-intense lasers and matters. The Name of the theory is well-known, although the understanding of that world is quite difficult. Therefore, we developed software to experience the special relativistic world with OPENGL Scene Graph. The software has not only normal display mode but also a projection mode of a simple virtual reality apparatus using polarizing filters. With the software, the relativistic distortion of a visual field and the Doppler effect near light speed can be expressed. It is difficult for a teacher to teach these relativistic effects with graphs and formulae. This software and simple virtual reality apparatus have already been used in the Ishikawa-e-Science2002, JAERI-Kyoto-Science Camp2002 and a lot of visitor tours in JAERI(Kizu). A lot of people were interested in these relativistic effects after the demonstration.