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In special relativity, a four-vector (or 4-vector, sometimes Lorentz vector) [1] is an object with four components, which transform in a specific way under Lorentz transformations. Specifically, a four-vector is an element of a four-dimensional vector space considered as a representation space of the standard representation of the Lorentz group ...
Spacetime mathematically viewed as R 4 endowed with this bilinear form is known as Minkowski space M. The Lorentz transformation is thus an element of the group O(1, 3), the Lorentz group or, for those that prefer the other metric signature, O(3, 1) (also called the Lorentz group). [nb 3] One has:
However, a line integral involves the application of the vector dot product, and when this is extended to 4-dimensional spacetime, a change of sign is introduced to either the spatial co-ordinates or the time co-ordinate depending on the convention used. This is due to the non-Euclidean nature of spacetime.
In physics, spacetime, also called the space-time continuum, is a mathematical model that fuses the three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional continuum. Spacetime diagrams are useful in visualizing and understanding relativistic effects, such as how different observers perceive where and when events ...
The Christoffel symbols find frequent use in Einstein's theory of general relativity, where spacetime is represented by a curved 4-dimensional Lorentz manifold with a Levi-Civita connection. The Einstein field equations – which determine the geometry of spacetime in the presence of matter – contain the Ricci tensor. Since the Ricci tensor ...
Hermann Minkowski (1864–1909) found that the theory of special relativity could be best understood as a four-dimensional space, since known as the Minkowski spacetime. In physics, Minkowski space (or Minkowski spacetime) (/ m ɪ ŋ ˈ k ɔː f s k i,-ˈ k ɒ f-/ [1]) is the main mathematical description of spacetime in the absence of gravitation.
The velocity, in contrast, is the rate of change of the position in (three-dimensional) space of the object, as seen by an observer, with respect to the observer's time. The value of the magnitude of an object's four-velocity, i.e. the quantity obtained by applying the metric tensor g to the four-velocity U , that is ‖ U ‖ 2 = U ⋅ U = g ...
Here the component x 0 = ct gives the displacement of a body in time (coordinate time t is multiplied by the speed of light c so that x 0 has dimensions of length). The remaining components of the four-displacement form the spatial displacement vector x = ( x 1 , x 2 , x 3 ).