Rubber Sheet Analogy For Warping Of Spacetime

That pit is caused by the central mass is gravity.

Rubber sheet analogy for warping of spacetime. This in fact is an excellent analogy. In general relativity energy and mass have curvature effects on the four dimensions of the universe spacetime. Consider an equatorial slice through the black hole. If you put a mass i e the earth on the sheet the sheet will stretch out and create a pit into which other objects moons etc will fall in and orbit around.

That the warping of spacetime to produce gravity is like the deformation of a rubber sheet by a central mass. This comic refers to a common analogy used to explain how mass distorts space time a bowling ball resting on a sheet of rubber distorts the sheet due to its weight. A rubber sheet warped by a heavy stone left is an excellent analogy for a black hole s warped space right. On a flat rubber sheet a trained ant has no trouble walking in a straight line.

Figure 24 8 three dimensional analogy for spacetime. The system has some qualitative features in common with gravity. Since spacetime warping can be a difficult concept to understand and visualise an analogy is often used in physics education. A common analogy is placing a heavy object on a stretched out rubber sheet causing the sheet to bend downward.

The mechanisms behind rolling down a dent and the geodesics of spacetime are different. On a flat rubber sheet a trained ant has no trouble walking in a straight line. The similarity is that something is warping which changes the path. Figure pageindex 2 three dimensional analogy for spacetime.

Spacetime is like a rubber sheet that is flexible. When a massive object creates a big depression in the sheet the ant which must walk where the sheet takes it finds its path changed warped dramatically. When a massive object creates a big depression in the sheet the ant which must walk where the sheet takes it finds its path changed warped dramatically. The most common analogy for understanding gravity goes like this.

The way masses warp the rubber sheet and affect other smaller masses can help students develop an intuitive understanding of how gravity works under gr. It also implies that the warp is into a different dimension which is not necessary. What is the geometry of that slice. Spacetime can be thought as a thin rubber sheet.

Now physicists have tested this idea theoretically and experimentally and say it doesn t hold water. This state of affairs is almost entirely the result of one the most famous analogies in science. So the bottom line is that the rubber sheet analogy with spacetime is fundamentally flawed it simply cannot reproduce the motion that general relativity predicts. With a rubber sheet the reason things roll into the bottom of the dent is well gravity.