Basic Lorentz Transform widget

[Dale]

I have recently found that Mathematica has a "reader" which allows interactive calculations and plots to be shared. Here is a simple example, please let me know if there is interest in more such widgets.

 

[PAllen]

I have recently found that Mathematica has a "reader" which allows interactive calculations and plots to be shared. Here is a simple example, please let me know if there is interest in more such widgets.

Where do you get the reader? My browser has no idea what to do with this file. I assume it's free a la the pdf reader versus document creator? If this is to be used on PF, we should have a ling somewhere to download the reader, as this is not something people are likely to have (unlike pdf).

 

[ghwellsjr]

I think you need Mathematica.

 

[Dale]

Here is a link to the reader. Supposedly you don't need the full version, just the free one.

http://www.wolfram.com/cdf-player/

 

[ghwellsjr]

After I installed the player, it said that it wasn't working but I went ahead and ran the widget and it did work. I did this on a Windows 7 64-bit machine with IE9.

I clicked on the three + signs to expand the controls which I think is very important to do. I found one minor problem. Whenever the x' value is zero, it displays an incorrectly formatted very small number with an exponent. For example, set t=5, x=3, v=0.6.

I thought this was only going to be a conversion of x and t coordinates from one frame to another moving at some v and it does that but in addition, it makes a Minkowski diagram showing the two frames.