Does gravitational length contraction act perpendicular to the field?

[notknowing]

A short question this time :
Is the gravitational length contraction an effect which acts parallel as well as perpendicular to the direction of the gravitational field ?
I suppose it is not occurring perpendicular to it, but I might be wrong and I didn't find a good reference on it.

 

[notknowing]

A short question this time :
Is the gravitational length contraction an effect which acts parallel as well as perpendicular to the direction of the gravitational field ?
I suppose it is not occurring perpendicular to it, but I might be wrong and I didn't find a good reference on it.

Sorry, stupid question. According to the Schwarzschild metric, it is only in the radial direction.

 

[pervect]

You might also want to think about:

1) what if one uses isotropic coordinates rather than Schwarzschild coordinates?

http://io.uwinnipeg.ca/~vincent/4500.6-001/Cosmology/IsotropicCoordinates.htm

2) You might also ask about what happens on an accelerating spaceship, i.e. using Rindler coordinates.

If the answer does depend on your choice of coordinates, it was really a question about coordinates (or more formally, coordinate charts) rather than a question about physics.