Computer-based Activity to Understand Proper Acceleration Using the Rindler Observer

The absence of classroom activities dealing with concepts of instantaneously comoving inertial frames and proper acceleration has guided us to design a hands-on experiment using elementary knowledge of special relativity. We begin by posing the questions (1) what would be the worldline of an observer ℛ which has a constant spacetime interval from an inertial observer A\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\cal A}$$\end{document}? and (2) what would be the speed and acceleration measurements of ℛ made by another inertial observer ℬ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\cal B}$$\end{document} moving relative to A\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\cal A}$$\end{document}?