light cone

[lahyt kohn]

noun

Astrophysics.

1. a theoretical space-time diagram in three dimensions, represented as a cone, or two cones with one in the past and one in the future, and modeling the space that light from an event or a particle traveling at the speed of light from that event can occupy.

Word History and Origins

Origin of light cone¹

First recorded in 1920–25

Example Sentences

The more people who could exist in the future, the stronger the case for longtermism becomes, which is why longtermists are so obsessed with calculating how many people there could be within our future light cone.

Read more on Salon

Altman, who became CEO of the new for-profit OpenAI, has said that if the lab’s does manage to create artificial general intelligence, it could “maybe capture the light cone of all future value in the universe.”

Read more on The Verge

The light cone shone over the car roofs, halfway illuminating them.

Read more on The New Yorker

This cone is called the future light cone of the event.

Read more on Literature

Those events that can be reached from the event P by a particle or wave traveling at or below the speed of light are said to be in the future of P. They will lie within or on the expanding sphere of light emitted from the event P. Thus they will lie within or on the future light cone of P in the space-time diagram.

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