- #1
pc2-brazil
- 205
- 3
Good morning,
We are trying to understand Special Relativity through internet, and we would like to ask a couple of questions about the subject. We plan to post more questions as more doubts arise.
Both doubts concern the Minkowski space-time diagram.
First doubt: in the temporal dimension, why is it necessary to choose ct instead of t? Most pages say it's for the time coordinate to be in the same units of the space coordinates (since metre/second*second = metre). If the only problem was that the time coordinate should be at the same units as x, y and z, then why c, and not any other velocity?
Second doubt: consider, for instance, a diagram with 3 spatial dimensions and 1 temporal dimension. The space-time interval between the origin and a point (x, y, z, ct) would be:
[tex]s^{2}=x^{2}+y^{2}+z^{2}-c^{2}t^{2}[/tex]
What is the reason for the minus sign, instead of a plus sign, in c²t²?
Thank you in advance for your patience.
We are trying to understand Special Relativity through internet, and we would like to ask a couple of questions about the subject. We plan to post more questions as more doubts arise.
Both doubts concern the Minkowski space-time diagram.
First doubt: in the temporal dimension, why is it necessary to choose ct instead of t? Most pages say it's for the time coordinate to be in the same units of the space coordinates (since metre/second*second = metre). If the only problem was that the time coordinate should be at the same units as x, y and z, then why c, and not any other velocity?
Second doubt: consider, for instance, a diagram with 3 spatial dimensions and 1 temporal dimension. The space-time interval between the origin and a point (x, y, z, ct) would be:
[tex]s^{2}=x^{2}+y^{2}+z^{2}-c^{2}t^{2}[/tex]
What is the reason for the minus sign, instead of a plus sign, in c²t²?
Thank you in advance for your patience.