Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-short-options-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2014/7/a/solution
Past exam of the short options course of the University of Oxford 2014 7 a Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-31
Use the Minkowski metric with signature and write , . Future-pointing timelike means and . Thusso is again future-pointing timelike.
Let and . In a Lorentz frame where , the future-pointing vector has . Consequently , with equality exactly when has no spatial component in that frame. HenceTaking positive square roots provesEquality holds exactly when are positive scalar multiples of each other. This is the reverse triangle inequality for future timelike vectors, not the Euclidean triangle inequality.
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