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Flat Spacetime
In mathematical physics, Minkowski space (or Minkowski spacetime) () 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. Although initially developed by mathematician Hermann Minkowski for Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism, the mathematical structure of Minkowski spacetime was shown to be implied by the postulates of special relativity. Minkowski space is closely associated with Einstein's theories of special relativity and general relativity and is the most common mathematical structure on which special relativity is formulated. While the individual components in Euclidean space and time may differ due to length contraction and time dilation, in Minkowski spacetime, all frames of reference will agree on the total distance in spacetime between events.This makes spacetime distance an invariant. Because ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Length Contraction
Length contraction is the phenomenon that a moving object's length is measured to be shorter than its proper length, which is the length as measured in the object's own rest frame. It is also known as Lorentz contraction or Lorentz–FitzGerald contraction (after Hendrik Lorentz and George Francis FitzGerald) and is usually only noticeable at a substantial fraction of the speed of light. Length contraction is only in the direction in which the body is travelling. For standard objects, this effect is negligible at everyday speeds, and can be ignored for all regular purposes, only becoming significant as the object approaches the speed of light relative to the observer. History Length contraction was postulated by George FitzGerald (1889) and Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (1892) to explain the negative outcome of the Michelson–Morley experiment and to rescue the hypothesis of the stationary aether ( Lorentz–FitzGerald contraction hypothesis). Although both FitzGerald and Lorentz a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Degenerate Bilinear Form
In mathematics, specifically linear algebra, a degenerate bilinear form on a vector space ''V'' is a bilinear form such that the map from ''V'' to ''V''∗ (the dual space of ''V'' ) given by is not an isomorphism. An equivalent definition when ''V'' is finite-dimensional is that it has a non-trivial kernel: there exist some non-zero ''x'' in ''V'' such that :f(x,y)=0\, for all \,y \in V. Nondegenerate forms A nondegenerate or nonsingular form is a bilinear form that is not degenerate, meaning that v \mapsto (x \mapsto f(x,v)) is an isomorphism, or equivalently in finite dimensions, if and only if :f(x,y)=0 for all y \in V implies that x = 0. The most important examples of nondegenerate forms are inner products and symplectic forms. Symmetric nondegenerate forms are important generalizations of inner products, in that often all that is required is that the map V \to V^* be an isomorphism, not positivity. For example, a manifold with an inner product structure on its ta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galilean Group
In physics, a Galilean transformation is used to transform between the coordinates of two reference frames which differ only by constant relative motion within the constructs of Newtonian physics. These transformations together with spatial rotations and translations in space and time form the inhomogeneous Galilean group (assumed throughout below). Without the translations in space and time the group is the homogeneous Galilean group. The Galilean group is the group of motions of Galilean relativity acting on the four dimensions of space and time, forming the Galilean geometry. This is the passive transformation point of view. In special relativity the homogenous and inhomogenous Galilean transformations are, respectively, replaced by the Lorentz transformations and Poincaré transformations; conversely, the group contraction in the classical limit of Poincaré transformations yields Galilean transformations. The equations below are only physically valid in a Newtonian framework, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galilean Boost
In physics, a Galilean transformation is used to transform between the coordinates of two reference frames which differ only by constant relative motion within the constructs of Newtonian physics. These transformations together with spatial rotations and translations in space and time form the inhomogeneous Galilean group (assumed throughout below). Without the translations in space and time the group is the homogeneous Galilean group. The Galilean group is the group of motions of Galilean relativity acting on the four dimensions of space and time, forming the Galilean geometry. This is the passive transformation point of view. In special relativity the homogenous and inhomogenous Galilean transformations are, respectively, replaced by the Lorentz transformations and Poincaré transformations; conversely, the group contraction in the classical limit of Poincaré transformations yields Galilean transformations. The equations below are only physically valid in a Newtonian framework, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Translation (geometry)
In Euclidean geometry, a translation is a geometric transformation that moves every point of a figure, shape or space by the same distance in a given direction. A translation can also be interpreted as the addition of a constant vector to every point, or as shifting the origin of the coordinate system. In a Euclidean space, any translation is an isometry. As a function If \mathbf is a fixed vector, known as the ''translation vector'', and \mathbf is the initial position of some object, then the translation function T_ will work as T_(\mathbf)=\mathbf+\mathbf. If T is a translation, then the image of a subset A under the function T is the translate of A by T . The translate of A by T_ is often written A+\mathbf . Horizontal and vertical translations In geometry, a vertical translation (also known as vertical shift) is a translation of a geometric object in a direction parallel to the vertical axis of the Cartesian coordinate system. Often, vertical translations a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reflection (mathematics)
In mathematics, a reflection (also spelled reflexion) is a mapping from a Euclidean space to itself that is an isometry with a hyperplane as a set of fixed points; this set is called the axis (in dimension 2) or plane (in dimension 3) of reflection. The image of a figure by a reflection is its mirror image in the axis or plane of reflection. For example the mirror image of the small Latin letter p for a reflection with respect to a vertical axis would look like q. Its image by reflection in a horizontal axis would look like b. A reflection is an involution: when applied twice in succession, every point returns to its original location, and every geometrical object is restored to its original state. The term ''reflection'' is sometimes used for a larger class of mappings from a Euclidean space to itself, namely the non-identity isometries that are involutions. Such isometries have a set of fixed points (the "mirror") that is an affine subspace, but is possibly smaller than a hy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rotation Matrix
In linear algebra, a rotation matrix is a transformation matrix that is used to perform a rotation in Euclidean space. For example, using the convention below, the matrix :R = \begin \cos \theta & -\sin \theta \\ \sin \theta & \cos \theta \end rotates points in the plane counterclockwise through an angle with respect to the positive axis about the origin of a two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system. To perform the rotation on a plane point with standard coordinates , it should be written as a column vector, and multiplied by the matrix : : R\mathbf = \begin \cos \theta & -\sin \theta \\ \sin \theta & \cos \theta \end \begin x \\ y \end = \begin x\cos\theta-y\sin\theta \\ x\sin\theta+y\cos\theta \end. If and are the endpoint coordinates of a vector, where is cosine and is sine, then the above equations become the trigonometric summation angle formulae. Indeed, a rotation matrix can be seen as the trigonometric summation angle formulae in matrix form. One w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Euclidean Group
In mathematics, a Euclidean group is the group of (Euclidean) isometries of a Euclidean space \mathbb^n; that is, the transformations of that space that preserve the Euclidean distance between any two points (also called Euclidean transformations). The group depends only on the dimension ''n'' of the space, and is commonly denoted E(''n'') or ISO(''n''). The Euclidean group E(''n'') comprises all translations, rotations, and reflections of \mathbb^n; and arbitrary finite combinations of them. The Euclidean group can be seen as the symmetry group of the space itself, and contains the group of symmetries of any figure (subset) of that space. A Euclidean isometry can be ''direct'' or ''indirect'', depending on whether it preserves the handedness of figures. The direct Euclidean isometries form a subgroup, the special Euclidean group, often denoted SE(''n''), whose elements are called rigid motions or Euclidean motions. They comprise arbitrary combinations of translations and rot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Euclidean Distance
In mathematics, the Euclidean distance between two points in Euclidean space is the length of a line segment between the two points. It can be calculated from the Cartesian coordinates of the points using the Pythagorean theorem, therefore occasionally being called the Pythagorean distance. These names come from the ancient Greek mathematicians Euclid and Pythagoras, although Euclid did not represent distances as numbers, and the connection from the Pythagorean theorem to distance calculation was not made until the 18th century. The distance between two objects that are not points is usually defined to be the smallest distance among pairs of points from the two objects. Formulas are known for computing distances between different types of objects, such as the distance from a point to a line. In advanced mathematics, the concept of distance has been generalized to abstract metric spaces, and other distances than Euclidean have been studied. In some applications in statistic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isometry Group
In mathematics, the isometry group of a metric space is the set of all bijective isometries (i.e. bijective, distance-preserving maps) from the metric space onto itself, with the function composition as group operation. Its identity element is the identity function. The elements of the isometry group are sometimes called motions of the space. Every isometry group of a metric space is a subgroup of isometries. It represents in most cases a possible set of symmetries of objects/figures in the space, or functions defined on the space. See symmetry group. A discrete isometry group is an isometry group such that for every point of the space the set of images of the point under the isometries is a discrete set. In pseudo-Euclidean space the metric is replaced with an isotropic quadratic form; transformations preserving this form are sometimes called "isometries", and the collection of them is then said to form an isometry group of the pseudo-Euclidean space. Examples * The isometry ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galilean Relativity
Galilean invariance or Galilean relativity states that the laws of motion are the same in all inertial frames of reference. Galileo Galilei first described this principle in 1632 in his ''Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems'' using the example of a ship travelling at constant velocity, without rocking, on a smooth sea; any observer below the deck would not be able to tell whether the ship was moving or stationary. The young Albert Einstein "was engrossed in analyzing Galileo's principle of inertia (Galilean relativity)". Formulation Specifically, the term ''Galilean invariance'' today usually refers to this principle as applied to Newtonian mechanics, that is, Newton's laws of motion hold in all frames related to one another by a Galilean transformation. In other words, all frames related to one another by such a transformation are inertial (meaning, Newton's equation of motion is valid in these frames). In this context it is sometimes called ''Newtonian relativity''. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
