I am a little confused about the implications of special relativity on causality and simultaneity.
Are the following two statements true?
- For two events A and B that are close enough in space and time such that A could possibly cause B, no matter how what inertial reference frame, A will always occur before B.
and
- For two events A and B that are far enough in space and time such that neither could not possibly cause the other, depending on your inertial reference frame, A could occur before B, or B before A.
Answer
Both statements are true.
It would be more precise to say that for timelike separated points the temporal order is always preserved while for spacelike separated points it is not.
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