I just can’t put my head around the fact that gravity isn’t just a force
EDIT : I now get how it gets stretched and how it’s comparable to putting a ball on a stretchy piece of fabric and everything but why is *gravity* comparable to that. I guess my new question is what is gravity ? 🙂 and how can weight affect it ?
In: Physics
Very simple intuition:
Velocity = Distance / Time
(you measure your car speed in miles per hour).
The speed of light, C, is constant in all reference frames (hint: this is part of what let us discover space & time warp).
Since gravity curves space, it makes Distances longer (think windy road is longer than straight road between two points).
If C is fixed, and mass/gravity elongates space, the only other thing that can change to make it work is time changing.
C = ⬆️ Distance / ⬆️ Time
i.e. time slows down for light (and actually all things) in high gravity/warped space
Einstein’s brilliance was showing how a constant speed of light in ANY reference frame (moving rocket, in curved space time, etc…) implies that time and space themselves warp.
Note: the actual relationships involving mass are what general relativity specifies and are more complicated. This example only explains the intuition on how time and distance are fundamentally related.
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