Gravitational length contraction

1. Nov 25, 2006

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 occuring perpendicular to it, but I might be wrong and I didn't find a good reference on it.

2. Nov 25, 2006

notknowing

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

3. Nov 25, 2006

pervect

Staff Emeritus
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 [Broken]

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.

Last edited by a moderator: Apr 22, 2017 at 2:14 PM