Fizeau Relativistic Light Drag
Recover Fresnel light drag from relativistic velocity addition and test its approximation.
Free theory articleRecover Fresnel light drag from relativistic velocity addition and test its approximation.
Concept & interpretation
The Fizeau experiment measured the relative speed of light in a moving medium. This module illustrates how the Fresnel drag coefficient arises as a first-order approximation from the exact relativistic velocity addition formula.
Experiment
Try the Fizeau Relativistic Light Drag module to verify the approximation error for different velocities.
- Select the Refractive index to 1.5.
- Change the Medium speed over c to 0.2 to see a larger divergence between exact addition and the first-order approximation.
- Observe how the Signed approximation error increases for higher relative velocities.