Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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 ...
Minkowski diagrams are two-dimensional graphs that depict events as happening in a universe consisting of one space dimension and one time dimension. Unlike a regular distance-time graph, the distance is displayed on the horizontal axis and time on the vertical axis.
An event in Minkowski space for which the spacetime interval is zero is on the null cone of the origin, called the light cone in Minkowski space. Using the polarization identity the quadratic form is converted to a symmetric bilinear form called the Minkowski inner product, though it is not a geometric inner product.
The two-body problem in general relativity (or relativistic two-body problem) is the determination of the motion and gravitational field of two bodies as described by the field equations of general relativity. Solving the Kepler problem is essential to calculate the bending of light by gravity and the motion of a planet orbiting its sun.
The two dots on top of the x position vectors denote their second derivative with respect to time, or their acceleration vectors. Adding and subtracting these two equations decouples them into two one-body problems, which can be solved independently. Adding equations (1) and results in an equation describing the center of mass motion.
This is because the travel time between any two points for a non-relativistic moving particle will just be the proper distance (that is, the comoving distance measured using the scale factor of the universe at the time of the trip rather than the scale factor "now") between those points divided by the velocity of the particle.
Even so, there are several cases where the field equations have been solved completely, and those are called exact solutions. [9] The study of exact solutions of Einstein's field equations is one of the activities of cosmology. It leads to the prediction of black holes and to different models of evolution of the universe.
The time-dependent solutions of general relativity enable us to talk about the history of the universe and have provided the modern framework for cosmology, thus leading to the discovery of the Big Bang and cosmic microwave background radiation.