Recent content by pgcurt

Special relativity tells us information can not be sent faster than the speed of light. I believe Einstein, but was curious what people thought about the following thought experiment: The nucleus of an atom has a particular width. With sufficiently advanced technology I could setup a...

The PDF is helpful. I've spent a small fortune on GR books for beginners, but find most of them sacrifice accuracy for intuitiveness, which ironically makes them less intuitive for me. The PDF is helpful. I think I'll also invest in Hartle's book. I had "understand GR" as a new year's...

That link was helpful. I think I need to get my arms around energy tensors. On a different note, are you aware of any good sites explaining how to interpret embedding diagrams? I find the bowling ball on a trampoline analogy confusing, as there isn't really any "down". They seem to imply...

As I understand it, a way to look at E=mc^2 is to think of it as the energy required to accelerate a given amount of mass. I also understand that mass warps space-time creating an acceleration (gravity) in objects near that mass. Is there a direct correlation between the energy required to...

Sounds like I need to review tidal forces. Thanks for the info!

I was just reading "A Briefer History of Time". Stephen Hawking describes how your body would be torn to shreds by the increasing forces from gravity as you approach a black hole. I've read this from other sources as well. However, from what I understand about general relativity, gravity...