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Albert Einstein believed space and time made up a fourth dimension. An example from a string theorist gives a view of what a fourth dimension could be. We move through three dimensions.
In four-dimensional spacetime, the analog to distance is the interval. Although time comes in as a fourth dimension, it is treated differently than the spatial dimensions. Minkowski space hence differs in important respects from four-dimensional Euclidean space.
In Einstein's theory, it turns out to be impossible to find a general definition for a seemingly simple property such as a system's total mass (or energy). The main reason is that the gravitational field—like any physical field—must be ascribed a certain energy, but that it proves to be fundamentally impossible to localize that energy.
Einstein's theory of relativity is formulated in 4D space, [3] although not in a Euclidean 4D space. Einstein's concept of spacetime has a Minkowski structure based on a non-Euclidean geometry with three spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension, rather than the four symmetric spatial dimensions of Schläfli's Euclidean 4D space.
Albert Einstein, physicist, 1879-1955, Graphic: Heikenwaelder Hugo,1999 Special relativity is a theory of the structure of spacetime . It was introduced in Einstein's 1905 paper " On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies " (for the contributions of many other physicists and mathematicians, see History of special relativity ).
In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory of the relationship between space and time. In Albert Einstein 's 1905 paper, On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies , the theory is presented as being based on just two postulates : [ p 1 ] [ 1 ] [ 2 ]
In Einstein's theory of relativity, the path of an object moving relative to a particular frame of reference is defined by four coordinate functions x μ (τ), where μ is a spacetime index which takes the value 0 for the timelike component, and 1, 2, 3 for the spacelike coordinates.
Albert Einstein believed that the geodesic equation of motion can be derived from the field equations for empty space, i.e. from the fact that the Ricci curvature vanishes. He wrote: [ 5 ] It has been shown that this law of motion — generalized to the case of arbitrarily large gravitating masses — can be derived from the field equations of ...