Monday 15 September 2014

Is the popular explanation given for gravity in General Relativity misleading?




In most popular explanations of General Relativity, both in print and film/television, gravity is demonstrated using an example of a 2 dimensional plane being flat, then when putting a heavy object in it it curves the plane into a funnel shape and you can visualize how other objects roll down the funnel into the gravity well simulating something like the orbits of the planets around the sun as an example.


However this demonstration relies on the notion of "down", or even the actual gravitational attraction on Earth, so that the objects in orbit roll or fall down the well.


This kind of explanation seems to rely on a force in order to explain that the force of gravity is just the curving of spacetime. At the very least I find this to not really explain how the theory of General Relativity actually works.




No comments:

Post a Comment

Understanding Stagnation point in pitot fluid

What is stagnation point in fluid mechanics. At the open end of the pitot tube the velocity of the fluid becomes zero.But that should result...