World Lines As A Tool To Describe Events
A one-dimensional line or curve can be represented by the coordinates as a function of one parameter. Each value of the parameter corresponds to a point in spacetime and varying the parameter traces out a line. So in mathematical terms a curve is defined by four coordinate functions (where usually denotes the time coordinate) depending on one parameter . A coordinate grid in spacetime is the set of curves one obtains if three out of four coordinate functions are set to a constant.
Sometimes, the term world line is loosely used for any curve in spacetime. This terminology causes confusions. More properly, a world line is a curve in spacetime which traces out the (time) history of a particle, observer or small object. One usually takes the proper time of an object or an observer as the curve parameter along the world line.
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Famous quotes containing the words world, lines, tool, describe and/or events:
“It is true that men themselves made this world of nations ... but this world without doubt has issued from a mind often diverse, at times quite contrary, and always superior to the particular ends that men had proposed to themselves.”
—Giambattista Vico (1688–1744)
“I struck the board, and cried, “No more.
I will abroad.”
What? Shall I ever sigh and pine?
My lines and life are free; free as the road,
Loose as the wind, as large as store.
Shall I be still in suit?”
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“The first tool I step on
Turned into a weapon.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“To describe drunkenness for the colorful vocabulary is rather cynical. There is nothing easier than to capitalize on drunkards.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“There are many events in the womb of time which will be delivered.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)