Space and time have the same units?

[leahcim]

@Bytegeist

Isn’t there an alternate convention where you always multiply the time component (in a four-vector) by i, so that when you square it in the expression for vector magnitude, a -1 gets baked in automatically?

You’re talking about Wick Rotation. So yes .

[Bytegeist]

@leahcim

You’re talking about Wick Rotation.

Thanks. Now I know the name for that.

[Asympotically_fat]

@Bytegeist

Thanks. Now I know the name for that.

Though the covention of using an imaginary time coordinatde (infact it was the original convention used by Minkowski when he first introduced the concept of spacetime) pre-dates Wick rotation and had fallen out of favour by the time Wick revived for purely practical reasons