this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2024
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[–] kogasa@programming.dev 2 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

That's not a metric. In any metric, distances are positive between distinct points and 0 between equal points

[–] OrganicMustard@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

It depends which metric definition are you using. The one I wrote is a pseudo-Riemannian metric that is not positive defined.

Normally physicists use that generalized metric definition because spacetime in most cases has a metric signature of (-1, 1, 1, 1). Points with zero distance are not necessarily the same point, they just are in the same null geodesic.

[–] kogasa@programming.dev 1 points 3 weeks ago

You're talking about a metric tensor on a pseudo-Riemannian manifold, I'm talking about a metric space. A metric in the sense of a metric space takes nonnegative real values. If you relax the condition that distinct points have nonzero distance, it's a pseudometric.

[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

This is true for real-valued metrics but not complex-valued metrics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_measure

[–] kogasa@programming.dev 2 points 3 weeks ago

Metric, not measure. Metrics are real by definition.