Clairaut's Theorem in Minkowski Space

Abstract

We consider some aspects of the geometry of surfaces of revolution in three-dimensional Minkowski space. First, we show that Clairaut's theorem, which gives a well-known characterization of geodesics on a surface of revolution in Euclidean space, has an analogous result in three-dimensional Minkowski space. We then illustrate the significant differences between the two cases which arise in spite of their formal similarity.