The publication “This mind-bending relativity illusion has never been seen—until now, opens an external URL in a new window” by Viktoria Helm, Thomas Juffmann and Peter Schattschneider, published in Scientific American, is causing quite a stir. Not only has this article already been read nearly 40,000 times, but a German translation has also been published in Spektrum der Wissenschaft, opens an external URL in a new window. A Chinese translation can be found on cnBeta, opens an external URL in a new window, the Taiwanese knowledge platform for technology, telecommunications, media and the internet.

The article in Scientific American on the Terrell effect is based on the original publication A snapshot of relativistic motion: visualizing the Terrell-Penrose effect, opens an external URL in a new window (reposiTUm), published in Communication physics 8 (2025) 161 (https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-025-02003-6, opens an external URL in a new window).