3 ms·
> the speed of light is constant That's not a good way of describing the actual law in a curved spacetime, i.e., a spacetime that contains gravitating masses.
by pdonis 2y ago
> the speed of light is constant
That's not a good way of describing the actual law in a curved spacetime, i.e., a spacetime that contains gravitating masses. In such a spacetime there is no single global definition of "speed"; you can't compare speeds at spatially separated points.
A better way to state the law is that the light cone structure of the spacetime constrains the motion of all bodies: timelike bodies move within the light cones, lightlike bodies (like light itself) move exactly on the light cones. But once you state it that way, it becomes obvious that this law does not impose any constraints on "time/space fluctuations".
- User23 2y agoEinstein's wonderful book Relatvity clarified (sort of) this for me. It's not too hard to develop an intuition about special relativity, but GR is a whole other ball of wax.