How does gravity bend spacetime if spacetime isn't a physical surface?

[Navid Eghbali9]

Can someone explain how gravity pushes? I know that it bends space-time, and I've seen pictures of this. But in all of the pictures, they are just objects on a flat surface. Is it really like this, because then wouldn't space-time itself have its own gravity.

 

[phinds]

Gravity is the geometry of spacetime and it does not push. Whatever you've been seeing, either it's wrong or you have misunderstood it. Can you give a specific example of what you've seen and how you have concluded that there is "pushing" going on?

 

[A.T.]

Can someone explain how gravity pushes? I know that it bends space-time, and I've seen pictures of this. But in all of the pictures, they are just objects on a flat surface. Is it really like this, because then wouldn't space-time itself have its own gravity.

 

[sophiecentaur]

But in all of the pictures, they are just objects on a flat surface.

I agree, this can be very confusing and it's often used by people who have no idea about what it really represents when they attempt to 'explain' GR. It's only a metaphor where three dimensional Euclidian space is reduced to a two dimensional model and 'our' gravity is used to imply how Einstein's gravity can affect things by warping 3D space (the downward displacement represents the altering of 3D space). If you are finding it hurts your brain then join the club and don't feel you need to relate in a faultless way, everything in that model to real life.
Graphs in general can elicit wrong conclusions when the axes aren't well defined. (Talk to a politician about that!)