Proper velocity Proper velocity In relativity, proper velocity, also known as celerity, is an alternative to velocity for measuring motion. Whereas velocity relative to an observer is distance per unit time where both distance and time are measured by the observer, proper velocity relative to an observer divides observer-measured distance by the time elapsed on the clocks of the traveling object. Proper velocity equals velocity at low speeds. Proper velocity at high speeds, moreover, retains many of the properties that velocity loses in relativity compared with Newtonian theory. For example, proper velocity equals momentum per unit mass at any speed, and therefore
Four-velocity the 3d position vector, written as a column vector The components of the velocity formula_2 (tangent to the curve) at any point on the world line are Each component is simply written In Einstein's theory of relativity, the path of an object moving relative to a particular frame of reference is defined by four coordinate functions "x"("τ"), where μ is a spacetime index which takes the value 0 for the timelike component, and 1, 2, 3 for the spacelike coordinates. The zeroth component is defined as the time coordinate multiplied by "c", Each function depends on one parameter "τ" called