the nature of gravity in the sense of how it works in a 3D universe

Question

I need help with an analogy here because I simply don’t know/can’t visualise the true physics here.

Many people use an analogy for gravity acting on space-time as a sheet of material stretched across a plane and a heavy object in its center acting as a celestial body.
This is great for envisioning orbits, the curvature of spacetime and so on.

Now this is a “2D” sheet/plane that deforms “downward” in the 3rd dimension, I get it… But how does it translate to the actual universe? The universe is always 3D in all directions, isn’t it?

I’m stuck here guys, science help me!

In: 81

Answer 1

Same as magnetism, more or less. Just imagine all objects as both metallic and magnetic in 3D.