Why ct instead of t

[Jacques]

Norman I have problem following you and I don't understand what you are trying to say. Can you use less poetic sentence ?

[Norman Albers]

B-b-bingo! I didn't want to waste repeats but maybe we should look here at simultaneity. You in your fast train show clocks in each car window. A line of cameras on the platform takes pictures simultaneously (according to them). No picture shows the same time, and you will be upset at first. Fisticuffs could erupt if a relativist is not on the scene to calm emotions. dkv: yes it is that simple, sort of, except no THING travels at 'c'. Look at two space-time points (you at one goalpost, me at the other, and the chosen time moments for each). Let's say light-speed is 100 yards per second. If we define the points 'you right now' and 'me a half-second later', then light could not have travelled between us in that time. If we chose 'you now' and 'me 1-1/2 sec later' the opposite is true. The first we speak of as a space-like interval, and the second is time-like. Yo, Severian, I can explain more about General Rel. than Special in terms of starting from a simple premise. Can we derive SR from the one fact that 'c' is constant to all?

[Severian]

Severian you are telling me that In relativity space and time are the same thing ???

 

Pretty much. They are slightly different in that their weighting when you measure a distance is with the opposite sign for time as compared to time, but that is a detail.