Spacetime Light Cones

thingiverse

I'm Katharine Downey, a student at George Mason University currently enrolled in Math 401: Mathematics Through 3D Printing during the Fall 2019 semester. This object showcases my print from a class project where symmetry and/or linear or non-linear transformations were to be demonstrated. The object displays symmetry, initially appearing as two hollow cones, but it's actually a 3D representation of a concept in Minkowski spacetime known as light cones. It illustrates the three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time merged into a single four-dimensional continuum. Spacetime diagrams like light cones can be used to visualize relativistic effects. The geometry of the spacetime light cones remains invariant under specific geometric transformations, including reflection, helical scaling. Although the upper cone is known as the future light cone and the lower cone is known as the past light cone, their geometry stays the same despite dealing with different points in the spacetime timeline.