Lorentz Factor

The Lorentz factor, also called the Lorentz term or gamma factor, is a dimensionless quantity expressing how much measurements of time, length and other physical properties change for an object as it moves, under special relativity. It appears throughout the equations of special relativity and arises directly in the derivation of the Lorentz transformations, and takes its name from the Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz, in whose earlier work on electrodynamics the expression first appeared. It is conventionally denoted by the lowercase Greek letter gamma, though in discussions of superluminal motion it is sometimes written instead as an uppercase Gamma.