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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 ...
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.
In 1902, Henri Poincaré published a collection of essays titled Science and Hypothesis, which included: detailed philosophical discussions on the relativity of space, time, and on the conventionality of distant simultaneity; the conjecture that a violation of the relativity principle can never be detected; the possible non-existence of the ...
The principle of local Lorentz covariance, which states that the laws of special relativity hold locally about each point of spacetime, lends further support to the choice of a manifold structure for representing spacetime, as locally around a point on a general manifold, the region 'looks like', or approximates very closely Minkowski space ...
Rather than an invariant time interval between two events, there is an invariant spacetime interval. Combined with other laws of physics, the two postulates of special relativity predict the equivalence of mass and energy , as expressed in the mass–energy equivalence formula E = m c 2 {\displaystyle E=mc^{2}} , where c {\displaystyle ...
De Sitter suggested that spacetime curvature might not be due solely to gravity [2] but he did not give any mathematical details of how this could be accomplished. In 1968 Henri Bacry and Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond showed that the de Sitter group was the most general group compatible with isotropy, homogeneity and boost invariance. [3]
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 purple (dashed) line shows the path of a photon emitted from the surface of a collapsing star. The green (dot-dash) line shows the path of another photon shining at the singularity. In flat spacetime, the future light cone of an event is the boundary of its causal future and its past light cone is the boundary of its causal past.