Notes on Relativity and Cosmology - Physics Department, UCSB

4.3. MORE ON MINKOWSKIAN GEOMETRY 101
By the way, the transformation that changes reference frames is called a ‘boost.’
(Think of an object being “boosted” up to a higher level or strength (speed),
or think of a “booster” stage on a rocket.) So, what I mean is that “boosts are
analogous to rotations.”
4.3.3 Hyperbolae, again
In order to extract the most from our diagrams, let’s hit the analogy with circles
one last time. If I draw an arbitrary straight line through the center of a circle,
it always intersects the circle a given distance from the center.
r
r
What happens if I draw an arbitrary straight line through the origin of our
hyperbolae?