more art + physics
An interesting way to compare the innovations of Manet, Monet, and Cezanne with Einstein’s special theory of relativity would be to take a trip in an imaginary rocket train that accelerates gradually toward the speed of light. The precognitions of our three artists will become increasingly apparent as we compare the visual effects outside the train windows with the artists’ painterly styles. In this experiment we will be like the child Einstein who wanted to know what the world would look like if her were sitting astride a beam of light.
Einstein’s equations prohibit anything of substance from traveling at the speed of light because objects approaching this velocity become more massive and therefore ever more resistant to acceleration. Eventually , they acquire infinite mass, requiring infinite energy to overcome their infinite inertia. While nothing made of matter can achieve the speed of light, in order to answer the young Einstein’s question, and to finish this gedankenexperiment, let us imagine that our special train is exempt from this limiting process and has now achieved lightspeed. How would the world apperar to us from this unique viewing platform? This is the only platfrorm in the universe that is “absolute”
Imagine that we are in the obvservation car of our special train in a seat that allows us to swivel and see what is approaching and receding, as well as to be able to look to our side and see the passing countryside. We have sitting alongside us the eminent painters themselves to comment on the scenery. As the train begins to accelerate, no effects of relativity will be noticeable until the train achieves about one-half the speed of light. Here several peculiar visual distortions come to our attention. Looking forward, we first notice a strange flattening of the appearance of objects. The background to our scenery begins to move closer to the foreground, contracting the middle ground. This creates the illusion that perspective has flattened. Things look “scrunched up”. Space between objects is truncated, and figures begin to look two-dimensional, less rounded, and take on the appearance of flat playing cards.
At this point, Manet could not help but smile and nudge us with his elbow, pointing out that he had anticipated these effects when he painted Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe. If we turn around and look behind us, the same effect is apparent. Despite the fact we are hurtling away from the scene behind, it still appears flatter and the distant landscape seems much nearer to the objects closest to the rear of the train. Both looking forward and backward we see that shapes are flattened and perspective is foreshortened.
If we look out to the side while traveling at one-half the speed of light, we see the objects whizzing past us also beginning to change their shape. There is a noticeable contraction of their width and a corresponding increase in their height, so that obfects we see off to the side give the illusion of being taller and thinner than they were when viewed from slower speeds. Further, their tops curve away from the perpendicular. Right angles have disappeared to be replaced by gentle curves.
Sahdows also change at these high speeds. Traveling at slow speeds creates the impression , which in relativity is not correct, that light travels from here to there in time. In this misconception, the side opposite the source of light must always be in shadow. But as our velocity approaches the speed of light, shadows become less crisp, and the contrast between light and dark lessens. By way of illustration, if we can see two sides of an object at once, and one of those sides is in shadow while the other is not, then the simultaneous appreciation of both wil tend to blur the distinction between clear light and dark shade. The clear-dark of chiaroscuro will be smudged. Monet could not help but comment that the normal chiaroscuro of the landscape is gradually becoming more sfumato, and the effect becomes more obvious as our speed increases relative to the landscape. As our velocity nears 186,000 miles per second, shadows all but dissappear.
Besides this lessening of chiaroscuro, the colors of objects in the landscape begin to change at very high speeds. This is not only a function of relativity, but also of the Doppler effect. The hee-haw sound of an ambulance siren or train whistile as it passes us is an example of how sound waves are influenced by movement relative to a listener, a phenomenon first described by Christian Doppler in 1842. Light waves, too, are affected by the Doppler effect, and change colors for an observer who is in motion relative to them. Einstein in 1905, through a set of equations that expressed the transformation law for light frequencies, merged the classical Doppler effect with his special theory, and in so doing, explained the exact nature of relativistic color changes. These shifts in the spectrum with movement do not become apparent until an observer attains relativistic speeds.
Viewed from the rear platform, trees, houses, and people become redder. Objects in front of the train become bluer. Off to the side, objects’ colors also change. Monet, peering out of the windows would exclaim, “Mon Dieu”, and excitedly point out the peculiar rainbow effect that appears to blanket the countryside. The entire tableau is changing colors, those objects slightly past becoming redder, and those slightly ahead more blue-violet. Those directly off to the side take on an orange, yellow, and green cast.
While all these changes take place in the coordinate of space, a similar relativistic transformation occurs in the coordinate of time. Clocks seen off in the far distance both front and back, begin to slow. *(Classical Newtonian physics would predict that time as recorded by clocks in the rear of the train should dilate, while those in front should appear to speed up)*. To passengers in the train, the interval between events in the past---in the rear-behind the train; and events in the future-in front-ahead of the train, appears to shorten. The past and future, separated by the present, seem to approach each other, but this is an illusion. The present moment outside the train, the now-what Monet called instantaneity-is actually dilating, so as to include both more of the past and more of the future. Thus, objects and events viewed from the rear of the train (space) and the past (time), squeeze closer to the front of the train (space) and the future (time).
At the speed of light the scene at the rear of the train fuses with the scene in front ! The words “front” and “rear” lose their meaning and space outside the train contracts so severely that these two spatial directions are in contact with each other. Because of this queer effect, any individual looking forward sees the rear platform of the train! Front, back, and side are all squeezed into an infinitely flat, two-dimensional, verical plane. Length, the first dimension of Euclidian space, has disappeared. A similar fantastic distortion of time occurs at the speed of light. As I have mentioned, the closer we approach the speed of light, the smaller the interval between past and future is because the present is enlarging, oozing in both directions, swallowing up what was and what is yet to be in the single moment of now. At the speed of light these three durations of time merge.
Now Cezanne would most likely point out that for the passengers on the this train, determining if time were passing for event outside the train would be impossible. As in his landscapes and still lifes, proper time (from the german eigenzeit, literally translated as “owntime”), blurs to encompass one motionless everlasting now. Time as measured by change does not exist. Einstein said; “You have to accept the idea that subjective time with its emphasis on the now has no objective meaning.....the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however persistent”.
Before Einstein, the Western mind conceived space and time as separate coordinates. The measurement of each was a qualitatively different function, as distinct as telling time on a clock was from gauging inches with a ruler. But as we have seen on our train journey, once we break free from the very slow speeds of our earthbound existence, time and space are a complimentary pair, intimately intertwined: As time dilates, space contracts; as time contracts, space dilates.
Einstein’s equations prohibit anything of substance from traveling at the speed of light because objects approaching this velocity become more massive and therefore ever more resistant to acceleration. Eventually , they acquire infinite mass, requiring infinite energy to overcome their infinite inertia. While nothing made of matter can achieve the speed of light, in order to answer the young Einstein’s question, and to finish this gedankenexperiment, let us imagine that our special train is exempt from this limiting process and has now achieved lightspeed. How would the world apperar to us from this unique viewing platform? This is the only platfrorm in the universe that is “absolute”
Imagine that we are in the obvservation car of our special train in a seat that allows us to swivel and see what is approaching and receding, as well as to be able to look to our side and see the passing countryside. We have sitting alongside us the eminent painters themselves to comment on the scenery. As the train begins to accelerate, no effects of relativity will be noticeable until the train achieves about one-half the speed of light. Here several peculiar visual distortions come to our attention. Looking forward, we first notice a strange flattening of the appearance of objects. The background to our scenery begins to move closer to the foreground, contracting the middle ground. This creates the illusion that perspective has flattened. Things look “scrunched up”. Space between objects is truncated, and figures begin to look two-dimensional, less rounded, and take on the appearance of flat playing cards.
At this point, Manet could not help but smile and nudge us with his elbow, pointing out that he had anticipated these effects when he painted Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe. If we turn around and look behind us, the same effect is apparent. Despite the fact we are hurtling away from the scene behind, it still appears flatter and the distant landscape seems much nearer to the objects closest to the rear of the train. Both looking forward and backward we see that shapes are flattened and perspective is foreshortened.
If we look out to the side while traveling at one-half the speed of light, we see the objects whizzing past us also beginning to change their shape. There is a noticeable contraction of their width and a corresponding increase in their height, so that obfects we see off to the side give the illusion of being taller and thinner than they were when viewed from slower speeds. Further, their tops curve away from the perpendicular. Right angles have disappeared to be replaced by gentle curves.
Sahdows also change at these high speeds. Traveling at slow speeds creates the impression , which in relativity is not correct, that light travels from here to there in time. In this misconception, the side opposite the source of light must always be in shadow. But as our velocity approaches the speed of light, shadows become less crisp, and the contrast between light and dark lessens. By way of illustration, if we can see two sides of an object at once, and one of those sides is in shadow while the other is not, then the simultaneous appreciation of both wil tend to blur the distinction between clear light and dark shade. The clear-dark of chiaroscuro will be smudged. Monet could not help but comment that the normal chiaroscuro of the landscape is gradually becoming more sfumato, and the effect becomes more obvious as our speed increases relative to the landscape. As our velocity nears 186,000 miles per second, shadows all but dissappear.
Besides this lessening of chiaroscuro, the colors of objects in the landscape begin to change at very high speeds. This is not only a function of relativity, but also of the Doppler effect. The hee-haw sound of an ambulance siren or train whistile as it passes us is an example of how sound waves are influenced by movement relative to a listener, a phenomenon first described by Christian Doppler in 1842. Light waves, too, are affected by the Doppler effect, and change colors for an observer who is in motion relative to them. Einstein in 1905, through a set of equations that expressed the transformation law for light frequencies, merged the classical Doppler effect with his special theory, and in so doing, explained the exact nature of relativistic color changes. These shifts in the spectrum with movement do not become apparent until an observer attains relativistic speeds.
Viewed from the rear platform, trees, houses, and people become redder. Objects in front of the train become bluer. Off to the side, objects’ colors also change. Monet, peering out of the windows would exclaim, “Mon Dieu”, and excitedly point out the peculiar rainbow effect that appears to blanket the countryside. The entire tableau is changing colors, those objects slightly past becoming redder, and those slightly ahead more blue-violet. Those directly off to the side take on an orange, yellow, and green cast.
While all these changes take place in the coordinate of space, a similar relativistic transformation occurs in the coordinate of time. Clocks seen off in the far distance both front and back, begin to slow. *(Classical Newtonian physics would predict that time as recorded by clocks in the rear of the train should dilate, while those in front should appear to speed up)*. To passengers in the train, the interval between events in the past---in the rear-behind the train; and events in the future-in front-ahead of the train, appears to shorten. The past and future, separated by the present, seem to approach each other, but this is an illusion. The present moment outside the train, the now-what Monet called instantaneity-is actually dilating, so as to include both more of the past and more of the future. Thus, objects and events viewed from the rear of the train (space) and the past (time), squeeze closer to the front of the train (space) and the future (time).
At the speed of light the scene at the rear of the train fuses with the scene in front ! The words “front” and “rear” lose their meaning and space outside the train contracts so severely that these two spatial directions are in contact with each other. Because of this queer effect, any individual looking forward sees the rear platform of the train! Front, back, and side are all squeezed into an infinitely flat, two-dimensional, verical plane. Length, the first dimension of Euclidian space, has disappeared. A similar fantastic distortion of time occurs at the speed of light. As I have mentioned, the closer we approach the speed of light, the smaller the interval between past and future is because the present is enlarging, oozing in both directions, swallowing up what was and what is yet to be in the single moment of now. At the speed of light these three durations of time merge.
Now Cezanne would most likely point out that for the passengers on the this train, determining if time were passing for event outside the train would be impossible. As in his landscapes and still lifes, proper time (from the german eigenzeit, literally translated as “owntime”), blurs to encompass one motionless everlasting now. Time as measured by change does not exist. Einstein said; “You have to accept the idea that subjective time with its emphasis on the now has no objective meaning.....the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however persistent”.
Before Einstein, the Western mind conceived space and time as separate coordinates. The measurement of each was a qualitatively different function, as distinct as telling time on a clock was from gauging inches with a ruler. But as we have seen on our train journey, once we break free from the very slow speeds of our earthbound existence, time and space are a complimentary pair, intimately intertwined: As time dilates, space contracts; as time contracts, space dilates.