Plausible misuse of the Minkowski space terminology?
tommai78101 opened this issue · comments
Thanks again for such a wonderful Readme.md you have done. I've shared your repository with others, and they did give some feedback. I am wondering if you're able to answer them.
One of them said the following:
I'm not sure why you feel the need for Minkowski-Space. Surely R^n suffices and if I'm any judge that is what you use. Please note that M^n and R^n are not the same thing. In fact, I can't see why Minkowski-Space is really used here.
The GJK algorithm relies on Minkowski sums + differences, which transforms the problem into a space sometimes called the collision space - what he calls the Minkowski space. Source
Perhaps, it could be that there may be some sort of mixup between the Minkowski space mentioned in the Readme.md, and the Minkowski space related to physics.
Yeah, you are right, that space is called Minkowski space just for explanation purposes. Basically, most articles and videos explaining GJK will refer to Minkowski space in some form.
The Minkowski space from the Readme does not relate to a scientifically-precise definition of Minkowski space. I would say, that's a Minkowski space for non-physicians, for common people, and for everyday use ;) I didn't think the name would really matter for most readers, it is mentioned just a few times to refer to that surreal intersection space described in the article.
The article itself does not pretend to be a scientific work, of course, it's an introductory material for those who are interested to learn more about it. I had difficulties grasping and visualizing GJK in my imagination, not having a human-readable explanation of how it works, therefore I decided to make one in very simple terms for others who might need it as well.
Thank you very much for sharing it, and for the feedback as well! Really appreciate it!