The world line (yellow path) of a photon, which is at location x = 0 at time ct = 0.
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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 history of an object's location through time traces out a line or curve on a spacetime diagram, referred to as the object's world line. Each point in a spacetime diagram represents a unique position in space and time and is referred to as an event.
The most well-known class of spacetime diagrams are known as Minkowski diagrams, developed by Hermann Minkowski in 1908. 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. Additionally, the time and space units of measurement are chosen in such a way that an object moving at the speed of light is depicted as following a 45° angle to the diagram's axes.
A spacetimediagram is a graphical illustration of locations in space at various times, especially in the special theory of relativity. Spacetime diagrams...
the one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional continuum. Spacetimediagrams are useful in visualizing and understanding relativistic effects,...
Penrose diagram of finite size, with infinity on the boundary of the diagram. For spherically symmetric spacetimes, every point in the Penrose diagram corresponds...
to make the comparison. Graphically, this can be represented on a spacetimediagram by the fact that a plot of the set of points regarded as simultaneous...
A wormhole is a hypothetical structure connecting disparate points in spacetime, and is based on a special solution of the Einstein field equations. A...
A diagram is a symbolic representation of information using visualization techniques. Diagrams have been used since prehistoric times on walls of caves...
requires an adjustment in what slice through spacetime counts as the "present". In the spacetimediagram on the right, drawn for the reference frame of...
{\displaystyle dt=\gamma \ \left(dt'+v\ dx'/c^{2}\right)\ .} Spacetimediagrams (Minkowski diagrams) are an extremely useful aid to visualizing how coordinates...
experiment is repeated many times and the results are compared. A spacetimediagram has a time coordinate going vertical and a space coordinate going...
For example, this occurs with a uniformly accelerated particle. A spacetimediagram of this situation is shown in the figure to the right. As the particle...
four regions can be seen in a spacetimediagram that uses Kruskal–Szekeres coordinates (see figure). In this spacetime, it is possible to come up with...
Feynman diagrams are often confused with spacetimediagrams and bubble chamber images because they all describe particle scattering. Feynman diagrams are...
Spacetime topology is the topological structure of spacetime, a topic studied primarily in general relativity. This physical theory models gravitation...
PMID 20929843. S2CID 206527813. Taylor, Edwin F.; Wheeler, John Archibald (1992). Spacetime Physics: Introduction to Special Relativity. New York: W. H. Freeman....
yields key information about the spacetime's causal structure. This structure can be displayed using Penrose–Carter diagrams in which infinitely large regions...
flat spacetime. A common equation used to determine gravitational time dilation is derived from the Schwarzschild metric, which describes spacetime in the...
single moment in time) and traveling in all directions, would take through spacetime. If one imagines the light confined to a two-dimensional plane, the light...
related the local spacetime curvature (expressed by the Einstein tensor) with the local energy, momentum and stress within that spacetime (expressed by the...
the standard spacetimediagram. There the axes are measured by clock and meter-stick, more familiar benchmarks, and the basis of spacetime theory. So the...
Inflation then expanded the universe rapidly, isolating nearby regions of spacetime by growing them beyond the limits of causal contact, effectively "locking...
primarily by Isaac Newton. It introduced concepts including 4-dimensional spacetime as a unified entity of space and time, relativity of simultaneity, kinematic...
gravitational singularity, spacetime singularity or simply singularity is a condition in which gravity is predicted to be so intense that spacetime itself would break...
physics, Minkowski space (or Minkowski spacetime) (/mɪŋˈkɔːfski, -ˈkɒf-/) is the main mathematical description of spacetime in the absence of gravitation. It...
is a speculative mechanism for space travel involving the warping of spacetime into permanent superluminal tunnels. The resulting structure is analogous...
Consider the spacetimediagram in Fig. 10. Worldlines for a tuning fork (the source) and a receiver are both illustrated on this diagram. The tuning fork...
several important special-case formulae for redshift in certain special spacetime geometries, as summarized in the following table. In all cases the magnitude...
This appears as a slightly tilted lightcone on the corresponding spacetimediagram. An object in free fall in this circumstance continues to move along...
summarized by treating space and time as a unified structure known as spacetime (with c relating the units of space and time), and requiring that physical...