Minkowski spacetime

Minkowski spacetime is the four-dimensional flat spacetime of special relativity, combining three spatial dimensions with time in a geometry that makes the speed of light invariant.

Minkowski interval: The invariant spacetime separation between two events, calculated from their spatial and temporal coordinate differences. Its unchanged value under Lorentz transformations defines the geometry of this spacetime.
Event (relativity): A single occurrence specified by a location and time in a reference frame. Spacetime is the set of events, not merely a map of objects in space.
Hendrik Lorentz: A Dutch physicist whose transformations describe how space and time coordinates change between inertial frames. His transformations supplied the mathematics Minkowski recast geometrically.
Newtonian spacetime: The classical model with absolute time and a three-dimensional space shared by all observers. It contrasts with Minkowski spacetime's observer-dependent mixing of space and time.
Time dilation: The difference in elapsed time measured by clocks moving relative to one another or in different gravitational conditions. In special relativity, it follows from how inertial observers slice spacetime.
Light cone: The set of events reachable from or able to influence a given event by signals traveling at light speed. Its boundaries divide spacetime into causal regions for each event.
Inertial frame: A reference frame in which an unforced body moves at constant velocity. Minkowski coordinates are assigned by inertial observers in special relativity.
Albert Einstein: A German-born physicist who formulated special relativity in 1905. His theory of special relativity provided the physical framework for Minkowski spacetime.
General relativity: Einstein's theory describing gravitation as the curvature of spacetime. Unlike this flat model, general relativity allows spacetime geometry to curve.
Length contraction: The reduction in an object's measured length along its direction of motion relative to an observer. It arises when observers assign different simultaneous events to the object's endpoints.

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