>"A small black hole produces more concentrated distortion with nothing around it (think of a marble made of lead on a rubber sheet - lots of distortion, small

>"A small black hole produces more concentrated distortion with nothing around it (think of a marble made of lead on a rubber sheet - lots of distortion, small object), whereas something large with the same mass (a bowling ball made of something very not-dense) would have a different shaped distortion, despite having the same mass." I see what you are saying, but am thinking that the distortions need to coincide at a large distance from the object (ie at low accelerations), otherwise GR couldn't reduce to Newtonian mechanics. However, then I found this interesting discussion which leads me to believe that you in fact cannot really derive Newtonian mechanics from GR: https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/advanced-books-papers-on-derivation-of-newtonian-mechanics-from-gr.89178/ https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/advanced-books-papers-...