Rubber Sheet Analogy For Warping Of Spacetime

Figure pageindex 2 three dimensional analogy for spacetime.

Rubber sheet analogy for warping of spacetime.

With a rubber sheet the reason things roll into the bottom of the dent is well gravity. Spacetime is like a rubber sheet that is flexible. This curvature gives rise to the gravitational force. The mechanisms behind rolling down a dent and the geodesics of spacetime are different.

This state of affairs is almost entirely the result of one the most famous analogies in science. The most common analogy for understanding gravity goes like this. In general relativity energy and mass have curvature effects on the four dimensions of the universe spacetime. 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. 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. Since spacetime warping can be a difficult concept to understand and visualise an analogy is often used in physics education. That the warping of spacetime to produce gravity is like the deformation of a rubber sheet by a central mass.

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. Figure 24 8 three dimensional analogy for spacetime. What is the geometry of that slice. Now physicists have tested this idea theoretically and experimentally and say it doesn t hold water.

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. It s often misused to show that mass warps spacetime 895. That s interesting and certainly a. That pit is caused by the central mass is gravity.

This in fact is an excellent analogy. On a flat rubber sheet a trained ant has no trouble walking in a straight line. It also implies that the warp is into a different dimension which is not necessary. A common analogy is placing a heavy object on a stretched out rubber sheet causing the sheet to bend downward.

A rubber sheet warped by a heavy stone left is an excellent analogy for a black hole s warped space right. Spacetime can be thought as a thin rubber sheet. Consider an equatorial slice through the black hole. The similarity is that something is warping which changes the path.