Is Spacetime Everywhere and Does it Stack Infinitely?

  • Context: High School 
  • Thread starter Thread starter jdfire33
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Spacetime
Join the discussion
Registration is free. Ask a follow-up in this thread, or start your own.
Sign up Log in
3 replies · 2K views
jdfire33
Messages
2
Reaction score
0
So I have just recently started thinking about the universe and things like that, and I had a question about spacetime. I was curious as to how exactly spacetime works in the universe. Pictures usually show only one plane of spacetime, such as this picture. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Spacetime_curvature.png.
But isn't spacetime everywhere? So does it stack upon itself infinitely, creating a bunch of layers over and over? Sorry if this doesn't make sense, or if this isn't right the place for it.
 

Discussion

Physics news on Phys.org
jdfire33 said:
But isn't spacetime everywhere? So does it stack upon itself infinitely, creating a bunch of layers over and over?
Yes, but it is exceptionally hard to draw a curved 4D spacetime on a flat 2D monitor.
 
The rubber sheet is a visualization tool, but it shouldn't be taken too seriously. One of its limitations is that it can only show two space dimensions, whereas really there are three of space and one of time (3+1).
 
All right thank you. that helps me understand it more.