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GR: Fachverband Gravitation, Relativistische Astrophysik und Kosmologie

GR 3: Classical General Relativity I

GR 3.4: Talk

Monday, March 16, 2026, 17:00–17:15, KH 02.012

Discrete Spacetime Blocks for Visualizing GR: Interactive Geodesics in a (2+1D) Schwarzschild Sector Model — •Vassilios Marakis, Rahel Gabriel, Corvin Zahn, and Ute Kraus — Universität Hildesheim

We present an interactive web application that constructs sector models of curved spacetime. The spacetime is discretized into a mesh of locally flat Minkowski "blocks" in two spatial dimensions and time. Within each block, massive particles and light trajectories are represented as straight worldline segments, while block to block transition implemented as rotations and local Lorentz boosts encode the gravitational curvature. This piecewise flat approach enables an intuitive, visual treatment of general relativity. Geodesics emerge from local inertial motion plus the accumulated effect of successive boundary transformations. The result is a browser based sandbox for geodesics, that combines the concept of local flatness and global curvature understandable without requiring a full differential geometry toolkit during exploration.

Keywords: sector models; visualisation; web app; geodescis; black hole