Minkowski spacetime

Minkowski spacetime is like a big playground where things that we normally think of as separate, like space and time, can play together.

Imagine you are at the park and you have a toy car. You can play with the car by moving it forward and backward in space, but you can also play with it by making it move fast or slow through time.

Minkowski spacetime is like the park, but instead of a toy car, we are talking about everything in the universe. Scientists use Minkowski spacetime to describe how everything in the universe moves through space and time.

Now, let's break it down a bit more. In Minkowski spacetime, we use something called "coordinates" to keep track of where everything is and when it is happening.

Think about playing a game of tag. You would need to know where the other players are and when they are moving so that you can tag them. In the same way, Minkowski spacetime helps us keep track of where objects are in space and when they are moving.

But Minkowski spacetime is not just any ordinary playground. It also has some special rules that govern how objects can move.

For example, imagine you are playing catch with a ball. When you throw the ball, it moves through the air in a certain way. The path it takes is called a "trajectory." In Minkowski spacetime, the trajectory of an object is determined by something called the "speed of light." This means that nothing can move faster than light, and that limits how objects can move through spacetime.

So, Minkowski spacetime is a big playground where we keep track of where things are in space and time, and how they move around. And we use it to understand everything in the universe!