this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2024
1354 points (99.4% liked)
xkcd
8868 readers
63 users here now
A community for a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
What's a light cone?
A not too heavy cone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_cone
this doesn't give a very good explanation but I'm sure there's some good YouTube video that breaks it down. essentially maps out everywhere in space and time that could possibly interact with you in any way. this maximum is represented by how fast light can move away from you.
for example if you stole my car and ran away from me, I can draw a circle on the map every hour for how far you could have gone (assuming I knew my car's maximum speed). if I put those circles on top of each other it'll make a cone.