- #61
Jonny_trigonometry
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- 0
You can call it an aether, a quantum vacuum, or simply space-time. It's the thing that we exist within, and if it were to be curved, crumpled, squashed, twisted or whatever, everything within it would also.
If you look at the stars, you think that you are looking in a straight line, because the photons that reach your eye come from these distant objects seemingly in a direct line of sight. space-time could be "bent" (in higher dimensional space) in between you and the star, and the photons would travel through this bent region and also bend with it, because they are bounded within space-time, and it still looks like you are looking straight forward, but if you could view this scenario from "higher dimensional space" (the space that space-time exists within) you would see that the space in between you and the star is not linear. To you, within space-time, your line of sight appears linear. So you can't know how space-time is bent unless you can see it from the outside.
In GR, mass is the bridge between the curvature of space-time (within higher dimensional space) and us (within space-time). Einstein stated that a curvature of space-time produces a force within space-time, and the curvature is caused by mass. So this gives rise to gravitational effects. The scenerio I was explaining above is sort of like this, but I wasn't thinking of curvature as producing a force that we could feel. If curvature of space didnt' produce any forces within space, then it could be distorted in any way shape or form without us being able to detect. it could loop around and fold and twist in all sorts of ways between you and your computer screen and you wouldn't be able to tell. The main thing that GR does is assume that the curvature of space produces a force within space.
a 2D piece of paper can't be folded in 2D, it must need another dimension to be able to be folded. a crumpled up piece of paper can only exist in 3D. think of space invaders the video game, all the characters and environment in that game are in a 2D universe, so if you could fold their world (which exists in a 2D plane) they would also be folded, and to them, things are no different because the photons they use to see each other follow the folded path also, so everything still looks the same to them. If you crumpled it up, everything would still look the same to them. They wouldn't be aware that their entire universe was crumpled up in a higher dimensional space.
If you look at the stars, you think that you are looking in a straight line, because the photons that reach your eye come from these distant objects seemingly in a direct line of sight. space-time could be "bent" (in higher dimensional space) in between you and the star, and the photons would travel through this bent region and also bend with it, because they are bounded within space-time, and it still looks like you are looking straight forward, but if you could view this scenario from "higher dimensional space" (the space that space-time exists within) you would see that the space in between you and the star is not linear. To you, within space-time, your line of sight appears linear. So you can't know how space-time is bent unless you can see it from the outside.
In GR, mass is the bridge between the curvature of space-time (within higher dimensional space) and us (within space-time). Einstein stated that a curvature of space-time produces a force within space-time, and the curvature is caused by mass. So this gives rise to gravitational effects. The scenerio I was explaining above is sort of like this, but I wasn't thinking of curvature as producing a force that we could feel. If curvature of space didnt' produce any forces within space, then it could be distorted in any way shape or form without us being able to detect. it could loop around and fold and twist in all sorts of ways between you and your computer screen and you wouldn't be able to tell. The main thing that GR does is assume that the curvature of space produces a force within space.
a 2D piece of paper can't be folded in 2D, it must need another dimension to be able to be folded. a crumpled up piece of paper can only exist in 3D. think of space invaders the video game, all the characters and environment in that game are in a 2D universe, so if you could fold their world (which exists in a 2D plane) they would also be folded, and to them, things are no different because the photons they use to see each other follow the folded path also, so everything still looks the same to them. If you crumpled it up, everything would still look the same to them. They wouldn't be aware that their entire universe was crumpled up in a higher dimensional space.
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