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The Apparent Velocity and Acceleration of Relativistically Moving Objects
Although special relativity limits the actual velocity of a particle to ,
the velocity of light, the observed velocity need not be the same as the actual
velocity as the observer is only aware of the position of a particle at the
time in the past when it emits the detected signal. We consider the apparent
speed and acceleration of a particle in two cases, one when the particle is
moving with a constant speed and the other when it is moving with a constant
acceleration. One curious feature of our results is that in both cases, if the
actual velocity of the particle approaches , then the apparent velocity
approaches infinity when it is moving toward the observer and when it is
moving away from the observer.Comment: 9 pages, LaTeX forma