Nomenclature -- Special Relativity

Transcript: http://www.davidcolarusso.com/blog/?p=41#more-41

The Tabletop Explainer is an intermittent educational vlog presenting answers to viewer questions, brief science lessons, and ideas for teachers and students. It is a feature of my blog "Tilts at Windmils" which can be found at http://www.davidcolarusso.com/blog/

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• special
• relativity
• science
• physics
• space-time
• diagram
• constant
• lines
• event
• world
• line
• tabletop
• explainer
• education

[Nick28th]

wow you did the graph wrong, distance ALWAYS goes on the y axis, it is called a DISTANCE TIME GRAPH

[dcolarusso]

To be clear, this is a space-time or Minkowski diagram, and by convention the time axis is vertical. This may be different from how position time graphs are traditionally rendered, but it's how physicist typically deal with graphing in relation to special relativity. If you'd like to know more, Google "Minkowski_diagram" and you'll find a pretty good Wikipedia article describing their use.

[dcolarusso]

@Norfeldt I've been working on episode three over the last several months, but it's coming very very slowly. I wish making these videos was my job, then I could focus on them, but as it is, in those "3 years" MindAsFocus mentioned, I've moved across the Atlantic, changed careers, got engaged, gone back to school and had to take on multiple concurrent jobs to pay for it all. One day it will be done. I just can't say when.

[afifa2951]

dood wheres da 3rd part



[starofcctv94]

please hurry up its almost been 4 years

[1708Sean]

@Ethurian traditionally gradient is dy/dx meaning that by your reasoning displacement will be on the y-axis and time on the x-axis. space-time graphs are the way they are for different reasons.

[Ethurian]

@Nick28th Also if speed is in position / time and slope is delta x / delta y than this means distance or position must be on the x axis and time must be on the y axis.

[PixelSlayer247]

You're great at explaining stuff.

[onlynameithoughtof]

@FixateYourself I had no idea, and still rated it up... oh well, hopefully science classes will give me stuff that I find interesting in the future... :(

[FixateYourself]

4 people dont have a clue what the shit is going on

[rembanation]

Great 2 videos! I just whish the other 3 were ready for my quiz in 2 hours

[MetaLMunchies]

i just shat brix. keep it coming