I guess another way to frame my question would be: Is there a graph similar to the one shown in this video that could show 2 equal mass objects out in the middle of space being pulled towards each other from a reference frame that favors neither of them? Or would you necessarily have to take...
Thanks. In real life I am a pilot with an interest in physics, not an actual physics student, so most of my knowledge on the subject has come from documentaries and rather simplistic free online courses. Some of the subtleties still escape me, but thank you for sparing some time for my...
Thanks for the link. I was referring a bit more to 2 objects that didn't have the same starting location or lay on the same x axis, as if you were to take both those graphs and put them in the real world in a staggered manner because it seemed like they would interfere with each others...
My apologies, the course I took on special relativity showed a 3d grid with clocks at each intersection to represent spacetime, so I guess it seemed more real than that. Also, a documentary I watch had Michio Kaku explaining that space pushing down on us was what was causing gravity, but it...
I must have misunderstood your post, I was envisioning an orbit on a 2d plane stretched upwards to add a time component making it helical.
So basically to see a curved 3d graph in 3d, we would have to accept that straight lines appear curved. I suppose that makes sense since the straight...
Right, I have been watching youtube and playing around with interactive graphs, namely these two:
http://www.adamtoons.de/physics/gravitation.swf
You don't necessarily have to click on them, they're basically the same thing you linked. I am just trying to understand how these graphs...
Thanks for the reply, and for the clarification between coordinate and proper acceleration.
I understand the equivalence principle, but in the example given to illustrate the principle, a person in a rocket experiencing 1G can look back and point to the space he passed through. A person...
So, I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of Special Relativity, but GR is a whole different beast. I am really stuck on where the acceleration comes from for Gravity. For instance, it's easy for me to understand how an orbit can form from bent space (an analogy for the way I think of it is a...
If c) was there, its perfectly alright that he measure both a) and b) as moving at .5c. It is also true that if a) and b) were "still," (meaning sharing c)'s reference frame) they could measure the distance between them as 1LY. However once moving, from the perspective of a) and b), the...
Yeah, I realize now that it was probably unclear what I meant by "time slows down." In attempts to keep it simple I was trying to minimize the use of terms like "reference frame" and things like "person A and person B and what A thinks of B" kind of thing, but I suppose that's necessary to keep...
That is correct. Regardless of how you are moving, you can always assume yourself stationary and the rest of the world moving.
When someone sees you moving really really fast in a train, it looks to them like you're moving slowly. However, to you the rest of the world is moving really...
This might be an overgeneralization but I hope its not just flat out wrong (in which case I hope someone will jump in and correct it):
Anything that has mass can never travel at the speed of light. Anything that has no mass will always travel at the speed of light.
Anything that travels at...
As far as I know, the best answer to this is because the speed of light is constant to all observers.
If you are sitting down in a cafe and a car drives by at 30 mph, the driver and everything in that car is moving at 30 mph to you. If someone throws a ball from that car in the direction they...
Basic calculous but go ahead and throw some equations out if you think they could help at all. I could use some direction to start looking things up
Edit: those links look awesome. spending the next few hours looking over them. thanks a ton!