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A spacetime diagram is a graphical illustration of locations in space at various times, especially in the special theory of relativity.Spacetime diagrams can show the geometry underlying phenomena like time dilation and length contraction without mathematical equations.
The dotted horizontal line represents the set of points regarded as simultaneous with the origin by a stationary observer. This diagram is drawn using the (x, t) coordinates of the stationary observer, and is scaled so that the speed of light is one, i.e., so that a ray of light would be represented by a line with a 45° angle from the x axis.
This template includes collapsible lists. To set it to display one particular list while keeping the remainder collapsed (i.e. hidden apart from their headings), use: {{Spacetime|cTopic=(listname)}} …where listname is one of the following (do not include any quotemarks nor parentheses): Introduction, Types, Mathematics, Relation to gravity
A spacetime diagram is typically drawn with only a single space and a single time coordinate. Fig. 2-1 presents a spacetime diagram illustrating the world lines (i.e. paths in spacetime) of two photons, A and B, originating from the same event and going in opposite directions. In addition, C illustrates the world line of a slower-than-light ...
Where Einstein referred to "an observer who takes the train as his reference body" or "an observer located at the origin of the coordinate system", this group of modern writers says, for example, "an observer is represented by a coordinate system in the four variables of space and time" [3] or "the observer in frame S finds that a certain event ...
Commonly a Minkowski diagram is used to illustrate this property of Lorentz transformations. Elsewhere, an integral part of light cones is the region of spacetime outside the light cone at a given event (a point in spacetime). Events that are elsewhere from each other are mutually unobservable, and cannot be causally connected.
Spacetime topology is the topological structure of spacetime, a topic studied primarily in general relativity. This physical theory models gravitation as the curvature of a four dimensional Lorentzian manifold (a spacetime) and the concepts of topology thus become important in analysing local as well as global aspects of spacetime.
The vierbein field, , has two kinds of indices: labels the general spacetime coordinate and labels the local Lorentz spacetime or local laboratory coordinates. The vierbein field or frame fields can be regarded as the "matrix square root" of the metric tensor , g μ ν {\displaystyle g^{\mu \nu }\,} , since in a coordinate basis,