What is “space time” and how does it “bend”?

Question

I’ve heard the term “space time” thrown around, and that gravity “bends space-time” but how does that work?

In: 16

Answer 1

All the responses in here are far too complicated so here’s a super simple version.

Spacetime is 4 dimensions. 3 dimensions you know XYZ, but time is also a dimension, and you are always traveling along that at a set speed.

Gravity is a warping of that spacetime, sort of like if you had a bowling ball held up by a bunch of elastic ropes, the mass of objects can’t pass through them, but will instead stretch the ropes. Those stretched ropes are gravity, they are trying to push to a state of equal energy.