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 are multiplied by the four-velocity, one then gets new physical four-vectors that have 4 independent components. For example: Effectively, the formula_27 factor combines with the Lorentz scalar term to make the 4th independent component Using the differential of the four-position, the magnitude of the four-velocity can be obtained: in short, the magnitude of the four-velocity for any object is always a fixed constant: The norm is also: so that: which reduces to the definition the Lorentz factor. Four-velocity In physics, in particular in special relativity and general relativity, a four-velocity is a four-vector in four-dimensional spacetime that represents the relativistic