Monday, May 7, 2018

special relativity - Question about derivation of four-velocity vector


In order to describe a notion of rate of change of positon, in four-dimensional spacetime, we have to introduce the concept of four-velocity.


So, consider the following:



For a massive particle with position xμ(t)=(x0,x1,x2,x3)(x0,x) we define the coodinate velocity as:vμ:=dxμdt(c,v)

Where the spatial components of (1) coincide with classical velocity vector and t is the coordinate time.


But, (1) is not a vector object indeed, because the components didn't transforms as vectors under a lorentz transformation:


dxμdt=Λμνdxνdtdtdt=ΛμνΛ0νxνdxνdtΛμνdxνdt



Well, I simply do not understand one elementary derivation:



--> It's not difficult to know the motivation for this definition:


vμ:=dxμdt(c,v)


I mean, we need a four-vector and this is certainly a intuitive candidate, but then we realized that this object are not invariant under lorentz transformation, ok. But I'm struggling to derive the expression:


dxμdt=dxμdtdtdt


Which is important to make the analysis of coordinate transformation as in (2). I know that this is simply the chain rule structure, but I simply do not see how to derive it! The classical chain rule is then:


df[x(t),y(t),z(t)]dt=fxdxdt+fydydt+fydydt


How can I derive (3) from chain rule,explicitly?




No comments:

Post a Comment

classical mechanics - Moment of a force about a given axis (Torque) - Scalar or vectorial?

I am studying Statics and saw that: The moment of a force about a given axis (or Torque) is defined by the equation: $M_X = (\vec r \times \...