Minkowski Space

Three dimensions of space and one dimension of time.

Minkowski space. In special relativity the minkowski spacetime is a four dimensional manifold created by hermann minkowski. Euclidean geometry is the familiar case. It has four dimensions.

This volume includes hermann minkowski s three papers on relativity. The convention in this article is to call minkowski spacetime simply spacetime. Minkowski space space time terms are used in mathematical physics and special relativity.

General relativity used the notion of curved spacetime to describe t. They are both metrical geometries. However minkowski spacetime only applies in special relativity.

I mean the word spacetime where space and time really aren t different things. Unlike a regular distance time graph the distance is displayed on the horizontal axis and time on the vertical axis. Minkowski space is a four dimensional space possessing a minkowski metric i e a metric tensor having the form dtau 2 dx 0 2 dx 1 2 dx 2 2 dx 3 2.

In his four dimensional physics minkowski found that pairs of ordinary mechanical quantities are in fact space and time components of four dimensional vectors and the ordinary electromagnetic quantities are components of new types of four dimensional structures. And i keep saying it fast like that because it s not space dash time like thinking about the different dimensions or thinking about two different things. Alternatively though less desirably minkowski space can be considered to have a euclidean metric with imaginary time coordinate x 0 ict where c is the speed of light by convention c 1 is normally used and where i is the imaginary number i sqrt 1.

The relativity principle the fundamental equations for electromagnetic processes in moving bodies and space and time. The minkowski space is actually a 4 d space with three spatial dimensions bundled along the x axis and the temporal component along the y axis. In mathematical physics minkowski space or minkowski spacetime m ɪ ŋ ˈ k ɔː f s k i ˈ k ɒ f is a combination of three dimensional euclidean space and time into a four dimensional manifold where the spacetime interval between any two events is independent of the inertial frame of reference in which they are recorded.