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I present a way to visualize the concept of curved spacetime. The result is a curved surface with local coordinate systems (Minkowski Systems) living on it, giving the local directions of space and time. Relative to these systems, special…
A century after its formulation by Einstein, it is time to incorporate special relativity early in the physics curriculum. The approach advocated here employs a simple algebraic extension of vector formalism that generates Minkowski…
This paper has pedagogical motivation. It is not uncommon that students have great difficulty in accepting the new concepts of standard special relativity, since these seem contrary to common sense. Experience shows that geometrical or…
The special theory of relativity has fundamentally changed our views of space and time. The relativity of simultaneity in particular, and the theory of relativity as a whole, still presents significant difficulty for beginners in the…
A two-dimensional Minkowski spacetime diagram is neatly represented on a Euclidean ordinary plane. However the Euclidean lengths of the lines on the diagram do not correspond to the true values of physical quantities in spacetime, except…
Special relativity turns out to be more than coordinate transformations in which the constancy of the speed of light plays the central role between two inertial reference frames. Special relativity, in essence, is a theory of…
A modern elementary introduction to special relativity for advanced school children or first-year university students, in Russian. I try to demonstrate that relativity does not contradict common sense; on the contrary, it follows from…
We present a comprehensive introduction to the kinematics of special relativity based on Minkowski diagrams and provide a graphical alternative to each and every topic covered in a standard introductory sequence. Compared to existing…
It is hard to imagine curved spacetimes of General Relativity. A simple but powerful way how to achieve this is visualizing them via embedding diagrams of both ordinary geometry and optical reference geometry. They facilitate to gain an…
We present an elementary system of axioms for the geometry of Minkowski spacetime. It strikes a balance between a simple and streamlined set of axioms and the attempt to give a direct formalization in first-order logic of the standard…
I apply the algebraic framework introduced in arXiv:1101.4542v3[math.MG] to Minkowski (pseudo-Euclidean) spaces in 2, 3, and 4 dimensions. The exposition follows the template established in arXiv:1307.2917[math.MG] for Euclidean spaces. The…
We present a comprehensive introduction to spacetime algebra that emphasizes its practicality and power as a tool for the study of electromagnetism. We carefully develop this natural (Clifford) algebra of the Minkowski spacetime geometry,…
This article explores the geometric algebra of Minkowski spacetime, and its relationship to the geometric algebra of Euclidean 4-space. Both of these geometric algebras are algebraically isomorphic to the 2x2 matrix algebra over Hamilton's…
A conventional space-time diagram is $r-ct$ one, which satisfies the Minkowski geometry. This geometry conflict the intuition from the Euclid geometry. In this work an Euclid space-time diagram is proposed to describe relativistic world…
For over a century Minkowskian spacetime has dominated discussions of space contraction and time dilation within special relativity. Brown and Pooley have called into question both the assumptions of Minkowski and the effects his presumed…
Different aspects of relativity, mainly in a canonical formulation, relevant for the question "Is spacetime nothing more than a mathematical space (which describes the evolution in time of the ordinary three-dimensional world) or is it a…
This article shows how to express relativistic concepts in a visual manner using the full power of hyperbolic trigonometric functions. Minkowski diagrams in energy-momentum space are used in conjunction with hyperbolic triangles. Elegant…
Minkowski space serves as a framework for the theoretical constructions that deal with manifestations of relativistic effects in physical phenomena. But neither Minkowski himself nor the subsequent developers of the relativity theory have…
We show that a topology can be defined in the four dimensional space-time of special relativity so as to obtain a topological semigroup for time. The Minkowski 4-vector character of space-time elements as well as the key properties of…
The paper proposes a 4-dimensional generalization of the Hamilton equations of motion to the case of the Minkowski space-time. The approach can be applied to quantum as well as to classical, non-relativistic as well as relativistic…