Spacetime Curvature Difference: Gravity vs Speed

Join the discussion
Registration is free. Ask a follow-up in this thread, or start your own.
2 replies · 1K views
Gerinski
Messages
322
Reaction score
15
Gravity causes spacetime to warp. Relative speed also causes an apparent warp from the point of view of the stationary observer.

But warp due to relative speed will cause rods to contract, rods will effectively measure shorter for the stationary observer. Accordingly we should also infer that something like a proton, which we assume to be roughly spherical, will appear as a vertically elongated shape, something like a banana, when subject to relative speed warp.

Warp due to a gravity well does not do that, a proton size and shape is the same in the center of a massive star or floating in the empty vacuum, always roughly spherical and the same size.

In which way is the spacetime curvature different when due to relative speed differences or when due to gravity wells?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Gerinski said:
In which way is the spacetime curvature different when due to relative speed differences or when due to gravity wells?
There is no spacetime curvature due to relative speed differences.
 
There is no spacetime curvature caused by speed. Special relativistic effects such as length contraction and time dilation are not caused by warping or curving spacetime, they're just using different coordinates to describe something that's happening in flat uncurved spacetime.