I was looking at how our solar system works and see that essentially the curvature from space and gravity or, lack of creates the movement of our planetary systems. I couldn’t seem to make sense of the details of how space is similar to a fabric and can be shaped in some way.
The example used was the age old blanket with a bowling ball in the center creating a wide curvature leading to the edges of the blanket.
How is this possible but can’t be seen, nor does it cause friction?
In: 2411
I think you are thinking to much in the 2d sense. A good analogy is spacetime is the 3d extension to the outside surface of a balloon. This shape exists in 3 spatial dimensions (it requires height, length, and width) but is a 2 dimensional shape with no depth. Spacetime is this but in 3d,it has depth, length and width and is the outside of the 4d balloon. With that analogy, let’s look back again at the 2d balloon. An ant living on the outside of this balloon only sees length and width, even though the space surrounds 3 dimensions. We are the same but in our dimension. When we add a weight to this balloon, it bends the space and a lighter weight would fall in the cavity formed, but the ant, who only experiences the x and y plane, doesn’t see that cavity but does see the effect on other weights. Applying this to our spacetime. A planet bends the space in the dimension we don’t experience or perceive but we still see the gravitational attraction
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