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Old March 4th 08 posted to sci.physics.relativity
Artful
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Default 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


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