Re: Location

Am Freitag000024, 24.05.2024 um 21:05 schrieb neus:

 Given three or four coordinates one can find most things in space.
 What if those coordinates are jittery, due to the ripples in spacetime, caused by gravity waves, how does one find an electron.

Coordinates always refer to a coordinate system.
A coordinate system has a zero point and a number of axes, which are somehow normed and defined.
E.g you have a large room and define the lower south-east corner as zero point (of your coordinate system) and the three axes x, y, z as 'North', 'West' and 'hight'.
'The norm' means, that you have also defined the meaning of '1' (here unit of length).
In SI-units you take the unit 'meter' and can then decribe a point in that room by a set of three number called 'position vector'.
e.g. (1, 2, 3) denotes a point in that coordinate system (aka 'location').
Other systems of coordinates are also possible.
Commonly used are spherical coordinates, because our home planet (Earth) has a roughly spherical surface and we usually live upon that.
But if now the zero-point wiggles for some reason (like e.g. an Earthquake), the coordinates wiggle, too.
But that would not alter the points in space, if they stay in place.
That's unfortunate for an observer at the zero spot, but usually no big deal.
TH