"In physics, the only difference between space and time is a minus sign"

Miss Entropic on May 14, 2021 at 5:37 pm

Idea: “In physics, the only difference between space and time is a minus sign”

Link: https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/53525-...

“Time is related to the space coordinates, but they are not equivalent. Pythagoras’s theorem treats all coordinates on an equal footing (see Euclidean space for more details). We can exchange two space coordinates without changing the length, but we can not simply exchange a space coordinate with time: they are fundamentally different.

It is an entirely different thing for two events to be separated in space and to be separated in time. Minkowski proposed that the formula for distance needed a change. He found that the correct formula was actually quite simple, differing only by a sign from Pythagoras’s theorem:

Where c is a constant and t is the time coordinate.[Note 2] Multiplication by c, which has the dimensions L T −1, converts the time to units of length and this constant has the same value as the speed of light.”

My question is: where does the negative sign come from ?”

why negative

Link: https://www.scienceforums.net/to

In this article of Wikipedia, about spacetime interval, from which I post some extract here below, it is said (in bold the part concerning my question): “After Einstein derived special relativity formally from the (at first sight counter-intuitive) assumption that the speed of light is the same t.... Read more

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Mickey on May 14, 2021 at 12:33 pm

Idea: “In physics, the only difference between space and time is a minus sign”

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkCWywO93b...

its more than an idea, but i guess it was an idea before it was an equation. Brian Cox does well explaining this here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkCWywO93b8

Prof Brian Cox on the difference between space and time

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=