General relativity matter warps space

[varuncsed1]

According to general relativity matter warps space and time and result is gravity,
but how matter warps space and time? Which particles are responsible for warping?
If quarks are considered as responsible particles then how warping of space time is done by these particles.

I have a lot of confusion about this, so please guide me.

Thanks

 

[tiny-tim]

welcome to pf!

hi varuncsed1! welcome to pf!

Which particles are responsible for warping?

all particles are responsible, and responsible equally …

the effect only depends on their mass

in fact, all forms of energy are responsible … a field of any sort has energy, and energy is mass

 

[varuncsed1]

Ya sure...all particles are responsible.
But i want to know about their interaction with space and time, How these particle are interacting with space and time to provide the outcome as gravity?

 

[JesseM]

Ya sure...all particles are responsible.
But i want to know about their interaction with space and time, How these particle are interacting with space and time to provide the outcome as gravity?

Physics theories just give mathematical relationships between the behavior of various entities, they don't tell you why those relationships, and not some others, are the "laws of nature" in our universe (you'd have to ask God, I suppose!) There is a certain mathematical relationship between mass/energy distributions and spacetime curvature, that's all we know. Even if there was a new theory that explained this relationship as an emergent consequence of some more basic type of interaction, the laws governing the more basic type of interaction would still be unexplained.

 

[Dale]

how matter warps space and time?

How matter warps spacetime is described by the Einstein field equations.

 

[bobc2]

How matter warps spacetime is described by the Einstein field equations.

JesseM had the right answer to his question. I don't think he is so interested in the description as presented in Einstein's equations as he is about why or how this happens. He should perhaps pose the question to the philosophy forum. And JesseM's answer would be just as relevant there.

 

[Dale]

I don't understand your objection. The EFE describes how matter warps spacetime, so that is the answer. We don't need to go to philosophy, we have a scientific answer to this question.

You seem to be a person who enjoys philosophizing and speculation, but that doesn't mean that everyone here wants the same. I agree with JesseM's answer re: why matter warps spacetime, but I think how is answered by the EFE.

 

[harrylin]

According to general relativity matter warps space and time and result is gravity,
but how matter warps space and time? Which particles are responsible for warping?
If quarks are considered as responsible particles then how warping of space time is done by these particles.

I have a lot of confusion about this, so please guide me.

Thanks

Hi the reason for your confusion is that nobody knows the answer - not yet, and perhaps not for another century to come. Imagine ancient Greece, and someone asking Plato what matter is made of, what particles are responsible for the elements and HOW they do that!

The only thing that we are pretty sure of, is that "empty space" isn't a true void: even when it's empty of matter it's not completely empty. But whatever particles or stuff there is that we cannot see, it certainly affects the natural size and shape of objects as well as the frequency at which clocks tick. And somehow it also makes that objects gravitate towards each other...

Einstein (1920) put it like this (compressed and slightly rephrased for simplicity):

"[Our measurement tools] are partly conditioned by the matter existing outside of the territory under consideration. This .. variability of the .. relations of the standards of space and time, or, perhaps, the recognition of the fact that ''empty space'' in its physical relation is neither homogeneous nor isotropic .., has, I think, finally disposed of the view that space is physically empty.
The ether of ..general..relativity is a medium which is itself devoid of all mechanical and kinematical qualities.. [The state of] the ether ... is at every place determined by connections with the matter and the state of the ether in neighbouring places ..".

Now we only need a super microscope

 

[bobc2]

Hi the reason for your confusion is that nobody knows the answer - not yet, and perhaps not for another century to come. Imagine ancient Greece, and someone asking Plato what matter is made of, what particles are responsible for the elements and HOW they do that!

The only thing that we are pretty sure of, is that "empty space" isn't a true void: even when it's empty of matter it's not completely empty. But whatever particles or stuff there is that we cannot see, it certainly affects the natural size and shape of objects as well as the frequency at which clocks tick. And somehow it also makes that objects gravitate towards each other...

Einstein (1920) put it like this (compressed and slightly rephrased for simplicity):

"[Our measurement tools] are partly conditioned by the matter existing outside of the territory under consideration. This .. variability of the .. relations of the standards of space and time, or, perhaps, the recognition of the fact that ''empty space'' in its physical relation is neither homogeneous nor isotropic .., has, I think, finally disposed of the view that space is physically empty.
The ether of ..general..relativity is a medium which is itself devoid of all mechanical and kinematical qualities.. [The state of] the ether ... is at every place determined by connections with the matter and the state of the ether in neighbouring places ..".

Now we only need a super microscope

Thanks for those refreshing comments, harrylin.

 

[JesseM]

You seem to be a person who enjoys philosophizing and speculation, but that doesn't mean that everyone here wants the same. I agree with JesseM's answer re: why matter warps spacetime, but I think how is answered by the EFE.

But I think from the wording of the OP that when varuncsed1 asked "how" matter warps spacetime, the question was equivalent to what you mean by "why"; in other words varuncsed1 was looking for some kind of meta-explanation of how matter pulls off the trick of bending spacetime, not just a mathematical description of the relationship between matter distribution and spacetime curvature.

 

[Dale]

That is certainly possible, at least bobc2 seems to think the same.