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Hermann Minkowski (1864–1909) found that the theory of special relativity could be best understood as a four-dimensional space, since known as the Minkowski spacetime.. In physics, Minkowski space (or Minkowski spacetime) (/ m ɪ ŋ ˈ k ɔː f s k i,-ˈ k ɒ f-/ [1]) is the main mathematical description of spacetime in the absence of gravitation.
The Minkowski distance or Minkowski metric is a metric in a normed vector space which can be considered as a generalization of both the Euclidean distance and the Manhattan distance. It is named after the Polish mathematician Hermann Minkowski .
The Poincaré group consists of all coordinate transformations of Minkowski space that do not change the spacetime interval between events.For example, if everything were postponed by two hours, including the two events and the path you took to go from one to the other, then the time interval between the events recorded by a stopwatch that you carried with you would be the same.
This form is invariant under the Lorentz group, so that for S ∈ SL(2, C) one has , = , This defines a kind of "scalar product" of spinors, and is commonly used to defined a Lorentz-invariant mass term in Lagrangians. There are several notable properties to be called out that are important to physics.
(Some authors alternatively use the negative metric signature of (− + + +), with =, = = =.) Lorentz transformations leave the Minkowski metric invariant, so the d'Alembertian yields a Lorentz scalar. The above coordinate expressions remain valid for the standard coordinates in every inertial frame.
The difference between this and the spacetime interval = in Minkowski space is that = is invariant purely by the principle of relativity whereas = requires both postulates. The "principle of relativity" in spacetime is taken to mean invariance of laws under 4-dimensional transformations.
A spherically symmetric spacetime is one that is invariant under rotations and taking the mirror image. A static spacetime is one in which all metric components are independent of the time coordinate t {\displaystyle t} (so that ∂ ∂ t g μ ν = 0 {\displaystyle {\tfrac {\partial }{\partial t}}g_{\mu \nu }=0} ) and the geometry of the ...
An equivalence class of such metrics is known as a conformal metric or conformal class. Thus, a conformal metric may be regarded as a metric that is only defined "up to scale". Often conformal metrics are treated by selecting a metric in the conformal class, and applying only "conformally invariant" constructions to the chosen metric.