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Unlike a regular distance-time graph, the distance is displayed on the horizontal axis and time on the vertical axis. Additionally, the time and space units of measurement are chosen in such a way that an object moving at the speed of light is depicted as following a 45° angle to the diagram's axes.
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 ...
This property results from the relation of the time axis to a space axis. Two events u and v are orthogonal when the bilinear form is zero for them: η(v, w) = 0. When both u and v are both space-like, then they are perpendicular, but if one is time-like and the other space-like, then the relation is hyperbolic orthogonality. The relation is ...
If one imagines the light confined to a two-dimensional plane, the light from the flash spreads out in a circle after the event E occurs, and if we graph the growing circle with the vertical axis of the graph representing time, the result is a cone, known as the future light cone. The past light cone behaves like the future light cone in ...
where is the instantaneous speed of the particle, the Lorentz factor, is the speed of light, and is the coordinate time. Solving for the equation of motion gives the desired formulas, which can be expressed in terms of coordinate time T {\displaystyle T} as well as proper time τ {\displaystyle \tau } .
Events connected by light have zero separation. The plenum of spacetime in the plane is split into four quadrants, each of which has the topology of R 2. The dividing lines are the trajectory of inbound and outbound photons at (0,0). The planar-cosmology topological segmentation is the future F, the past P, space left L, and space right D.
A curve M in [spacetime] is called a worldline of a particle if its tangent is future timelike at each point. The arclength parameter is called proper time and usually denoted τ. The length of M is called the proper time of the particle. If the worldline M is a line segment, then the particle is said to be in free fall. [1]: 62–63
Just as space and time are different aspects of a more comprehensive entity called spacetime, mass–energy and momentum are merely different aspects of a unified, four-dimensional quantity called four-momentum. In consequence, if mass–energy is a source of gravity, momentum must also be a source.