This lab is a 1+1-dimensional Minkowski diagram. You choose an event with coordinates (x, t) and a frame velocity, and the simulator tilts the moving-frame axes, transforms the event and evaluates the interval s²/c² = t² − x². The interval is the same in every inertial frame, which is what makes it useful.
• Laboratory space and time axes, a light-cone section, a selected event, boosted axes and a coordinate inspection cursor. • Four sliders: frame velocity, event x, event t, plus toggles for the moving-frame axes and explanatory markers. • Readouts: interval, event t′, event x′, transformed interval, the invariant difference (which stays at zero) and proper time if the interval is timelike. • Experiments: a null event has zero interval in both coordinate systems, and a spacelike pair can have negative t′ with no timelike causal ordering implied.
A positive interval is timelike, zero is lightlike and negative is spacelike. The boost is t′ = γ(t − βx) and x′ = γ(x − βt), and the combination t² − x² is unchanged. For timelike separations the proper time is τ = √(t² − x²), the time a clock passing through both events would record.
This is a 1+1-dimensional Minkowski diagram. The coordinate cursor is not a physical trajectory, so inspecting a spacelike point does not claim faster-than-light travel, and proper time is not assigned to spacelike separations. There is no gravity or curvature here.
No. The interval t² − x² is invariant, and the simulator's invariant-difference readout stays at zero for every frame velocity you choose.
No. That would require faster-than-light travel. Massive particles connect timelike separations, and light connects lightlike ones.
For a timelike interval, τ = √(t² − x²) is the time measured by a clock that travels between the two events. For spacelike separation no proper time is assigned.
Because the ordering of spacelike-separated events depends on the frame. The Spacelike pair experiment shows a negative primed time without any causal link between the events.