How does one use a Minkowski diagram?
wrote in message
...
On Mar 4, 2:17 pm, "Artful" wrote:
wrote in message
...
I'm not sure I know exactly how to use the Minkowski diagram. For
example, let's say you have a stationary observer and a moving
observer, and an event somewhere, for which the coordinates are x and
t in the stationary frame and x' and t' in the moving frame. How do
you get t', for example, from the Minkowski diagram?
Ram.
Seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minkowski_diagram
Look at the diagram in the section entitled "Minkowski diagram in special
relativity" with the caption "In the theory of relativity both observers
assign the event at A to different times."
Artful:
I considered it, but it seems to contradict the equations for Lorentz
transformation.
Then read it again .. that article shows nicely how all the effects of LT
are illustrated.
I mean, when I tried to get x' and t' through the
diagram and through Lorentz transformation, I got different things. I
expressed x' and t' using trigonometry from the diagrams, and I got
some kind of ugly mess. Can you point out my mistake?
No .. as I cannot see what you did .. you'll have to work it out for
yourself by reading the article there (and other articles and text) that
explain how the diagrams work
|