In physics, Wick rotation, named after Italian physicist Gian Carlo Wick, is a method of finding a solution to a mathematical problem in Minkowski space from a solution to a related problem in Euclidean space by means of a transformation that substitutes an imaginary-number variable for a real-number variable. Wick rotations are useful because of an analogy between two important but seemingly distinct fields of physics: statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics.
In physics, Wick rotation, named after Italian physicist Gian Carlo Wick, is a method of finding a solution to a mathematical problem in Minkowski space from a solution to a related problem in Euclidean space by means of a transformation that substitutes an imaginary-number variable for a real-number variable. Wick rotations are useful because of an analogy between two important but seemingly distinct fields of physics: statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics.
Source: Wikipedia "Wick rotation" · CC BY-SA 4.0
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