In Special Relativity
A beam of coherent, monochromatic light can be characterized by the (null) wave 4-vector
which, when written out explicitly in its contravariant and covariant forms is
-
- and
The null character of the wave 4-vector gives a relation between the frequency and the magnitude of the spatial part of the wave 4-vector:
Read more about this topic: Wave Vector
Famous quotes containing the words special and/or relativity:
“Friendship is learned by watching and listening to you. If she sees that your friends are people you like and trust and don’t pretend with—people who suit you—she probably won’t pick friends who just pass by, or people who can help her or improve her status. If you treat friends in a special way, if you are kinder, more generous, more sympathetic, more forgiving with friends, she probably will be, too.”
—Stella Chess (20th century)
“By an application of the theory of relativity to the taste of readers, to-day in Germany I am called a German man of science, and in England I am represented as a Swiss Jew. If I come to be regarded as a bête noire the descriptions will be reversed, and I shall become a Swiss Jew for the Germans and a German man of science for the English!”
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955)