Terathorn

14 hours ago, MigL said:

The 'bowling ball on a rubber sheet' is a two dimensional  reduction of a 4 dimensional configuration.
It has multiple problems, one of which is that you can observe it from an embedding third dimension.
Space-time has no embedding dimension; both the bowling ball and you, the observer, would need to be intrinsic to the rubber sheet ( i.e. also two dimensional ).

A three dimensional representation would already get rid of some problems, but not all.
Picture a three dimensional grid, where x, y, and z axis divide up the space into cubic elements.
A mass placed in this space would curve the x, y, and z lines such that the elements are moreskewed, and smaller, as you get closer to the mass.
That is 'space' curvature, and one aspect of gravity, but already much harder to visualize than the two dimensional example of the bowling ball/rubber sheet. Actual gravity is four dimensional 'curvature' of space-time, and I can't help you visualize that as it is impossible.

Some problems are just not suited to visualization, but understanding even just the basics of the math goes a long way to clarifying things.

 

That actually makes perfect sense!! 

On 7/5/2020 at 4:07 PM, MigL said:

What makes you think the center of mass is not the center of distortion ?

Didn't think of it that way... good point!

 

Are you maybe confused by the pop-sci analog of the 'bowling ball on a rubber sheet' ?

Indeed i am!!

 

Forgive my ,what are sure to be, many questions. Kinda trying to teach myself this stuff 🤯🤯

If gravity is a distortion in space time, why are we drawn to the planets interior instead of the direction of the distortion? I think understand the concept of the conical distortion pictures, but im still having trouble understanding why. Does the rotational speed of the celestial body causing the distortion play a part? This may have been touched on before so if you could direct me there that would be awesome.