My coworker told me gravity isn’t a force it’s an effect mass has on space time, like falling into a hole or something. We’re not physicists, I don’t understand.
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Your coworker is correct.
Gravity is really the result of the curvature of spacetime, which is a fancy way of saying the dimentions of the universe. We’re aware of 3 of them, you can go forward and backwards, up and down, and left and right. Any movement in our universe can be described by a combination of those three dimentions.
General Relativity (the [theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory) that describes all of this through some complicated equations) states that there is a fourth dimension, Time, that we’re constantly moving through. This makes sense because really, if you want to describe ***where*** an object is, ***when*** it was where you’re describing is important, especially if your system is dynamic (moving and changing).
Massive objects (“massive” meaning they have a lot of mass, but dont necissarily have to be big) curve spacetime around it (yes this means that time acts differently too). Things in our universe like to follow straightline paths. You can demonstrate this by rolling a ball, assuming the surface is flat it will move in a straight line in the direction you pushed it.
Something falling does the same thing. If you’ve ever fell a considerable distance, like bungey jumping or skydiving, you notice that you don’t ***feel*** the force of gravity while you’re falling. Its only when you hit the ground that you feel anything. Objects are following straight line paths through spacetime, but since its curved, those paths eventally collide with the earth, and the earth getting in the way, is what you feel as the force of gravity.
Hopefully im correct in my summary of General Relativity but if I missed anything please point that out.
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