This discussion is now closed.
Check out other Related discussions
lightcones
yo!i'v been reading steve hawk's literature and am confudled by lightcones. what is the purpose of these strange diagrams?
peace
peace
Generally to show the appearance of light in a future event and on a past event according to special and general relativity, this is what we would observe if we were in our own frame of reference observing a particles progression, and of course our frame of reference is relative.
They are much better than just saying this happens, they show what we would see if we were at the focal point, and how it would progress but only particularly in 4 dimensional projections.
Unless you know a bit about physics they may seem confusing but compared to just showing the maths to a laymen they are much more revealing. It is essentially a graph of our perception according to lorentz transforms.
Probably doesn't mean much to you but still
that's what you will see. Anything outside of the cone is not observable or indeed real.
They are much better than just saying this happens, they show what we would see if we were at the focal point, and how it would progress but only particularly in 4 dimensional projections.
Unless you know a bit about physics they may seem confusing but compared to just showing the maths to a laymen they are much more revealing. It is essentially a graph of our perception according to lorentz transforms.
Probably doesn't mean much to you but still
that's what you will see. Anything outside of the cone is not observable or indeed real.cool. that makes a bit of sense. thanks.
I'd also like to add that because light (and thus information) travels at a finite speed, a light cone indicates which area of the universe will be affected by an event that happens at a certain location. An example that was given in the book was the sun being extinguished. We would not know what happened until eight minutes after the fact, because that is how long the information would take to reach us. The effects of this event will spread out into space, which is indicated by the light cone diagram.
Everywhere you look, you are seeing things as they were in the past.
Everywhere you look, you are seeing things as they were in the past.
gotcha!
