Special relativity

Use your phone to observe how much your time slows down as you move around

When you move faster, your personal (relative!) time slows down. This is one of the many suprising consequences of the theory of relativity, that space and time are intwined into a single spacetime and that the actions we take in one dimension (moving through space) can impact our trajectory through the other (moving through time). This demo uses your phone’s accelerometer data in order to estimate your velocity, and so estimate how much your time slows down as you walk around.

This demo was built as part of the Fall 2021 Science Communication Fellows program at the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History.