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Somewhat on-topic, does anybody know of some decent and accurate pictures of what spacetime curvature actually looks like? No simplifications (other than suppre
by nilkn 12y ago
Somewhat on-topic, does anybody know of some decent and accurate pictures of what spacetime curvature actually looks like? No simplifications (other than suppressing dimensions), no analogies -- the real deal.
Let me describe more accurately what I'm interested in. At least one spatial dimension must be suppressed, maybe two. We're all familiar with the "trampoline" picture of general relativity, but I don't think this is accurate at all regarding the sort of curvature that actually occurs in general relativity. In particular, it's spacetime, not space, which is curved, and the trampoline picture almost invariably leaves that out.
Suppose space is one-dimensional. There's a great point-mass located somewhere on this line. In space-time, this line sweeps out a plane and the point-mass sweeps out a worldline trajectory along that plane. Now this plane must be curved according to general relativity. This curvature is something that should be fully visualizable by a human. What would it look like?
What if there were two great point-masses? Three? N, all equally spaced?