space-time

space-time continuum

(General Physics) physics the four-dimensional continuum having three spatial coordinates and one time coordinate that together completely specify the location of a particle or an event

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

space′-time′

1. Also called space′-time′ contin`uum. the four-dimensional continuum, having three coordinates of space and one coordinate of time, in which all physical quantities may be located.

2. the physical reality within this four-dimensional continuum.

[1910–15]

space-time

The four dimensions in which all objects are located and all events occur, viewed as a single and continuous framework for existence. Space-time consists of length, width, and depth, plus the dimension of time. See more at relativity.

Did You Know? Before Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, people thought they lived in a three-dimensional world. Time was considered to be a completely separate entity. But Einstein realized that a more correct view put time and the three space dimensions on equal footing. Physicists call the four-dimensional construct within which they interpret nature space-time. In space-time two events that appear to happen at the exact same time to one person in one place can appear to happen at different times to someone else in a different place. In other words, whether or not the events occur at the same time depends on the position and movement of the observers. How is this possible? Think of thunder and lightning. Lightning reaches the eye at the speed of light, while thunder reaches the ear at the much slower speed of sound. To an observer right where lightning hits, the thunder seems to come at the same moment. Several miles away, however, the lightning appears well before the thunder is heard. Similarly, if one observer were moving faster than the other toward or away from the lightning strike, each observer would experience the events at different time intervals. As Einstein figured it, everything in space-time is relative.

The American Heritage® Student Science Dictionary, Second Edition. Copyright © 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

space-time - the four-dimensional coordinate system (3 dimensions of space and 1 of time) in which physical events are located

space-time continuum

coordinate system, frame of reference, reference frame, reference system - a system that uses coordinates to establish position

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References in periodicals archive

On Space-Time Quasiconcave Solutions of the Heat Equation

It might, if the researchers are lucky enough, offer clues to the nature of space-time. Could the cosmic fabric be made up of discrete chunks, atoms of space if you like, rather than being continuous, as is assumed by relativity?

How to build a multiverse

An international team of scientists have detected the largest ever black hole collision through the ripples it made in space-time, Sky News reports.

Largest ever black hole collision detected by scientists

We introduce a DTN space-time graph as a networking paradigm for energy based routing and forwarding across swarms of low orbiting CubeSats or equivalent picosatellites.

Energy-Aware Routing for CubeSat Swarms

Space-time finite element methods for parabolic and hyperbolic partial differential equations (PDEs) go back to the 80s and 90s of the last century [3, 4, 21, 26, 27, 60] and have enjoyed a revival during the last couple of years due to the availability of massively parallel computers with thousands or hundred thousands of cores; see, e.g., [1, 2, 5, 6, 37, 38, 40, 41, 46, 47, 48, 56, 57, 58, 59] for some resent mathematical papers related to parabolic problems.

TIME-MULTIPATCH DISCONTINUOUS GALERKIN SPACE-TIME ISOGEOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF PARABOLIC EVOLUTION PROBLEMS

By employing the space-time presentation and the concept of space-time window, the problem is further formulated as the pickup and delivery problem with space-time windows (PDPSW).

Ridesharing Problem with Flexible Pickup and Delivery Locations for App-Based Transportation Service: Mathematical Modeling and Decomposition Methods

Hawking rightly points out that the very act of splitting space-time into space and time destroys the spirit of GR (general covariance) and therefore not much can be gained from this approach to quantization of gravity.

A Covariant Canonical Quantization of General Relativity

General relativity (GR) [1] formulates a physical problem in terms of differential equations as a geometric requirement that a space-time may correspond to a Riemannian manifold as the interaction of matter and gravitation.

Homotheties of a Class of Spherically Symmetric Space-Time Admitting [G.sub.3] as Maximal Isometry Group

Albert Einstein, in his theory of relativity, imagines gravity as an object making a depression or dent on the "surface" of space-time. To help understand this better, imagine space-time as a rubber sheet stretched at its four corners.

Nobel In Physics: Messages From Space

He described gravity waves like ripples in a pond, the pond being space-time. Planets, stars and other heavenly bodies have mass that distort space-time.

Gravitational wave seen by three detectors, all at once, for the first time

Qualitative Insight 1: Energy, mass and space-time are related.

Exploring consciousness through the qualitative content of equations