Question

General relativity

Just a thought.. if mass can distort space time.. and since we are a part of this space time.. why don't we get distorted along with it?. or is it that we are getting distorted but unless we see it from a higher dimension or something we can't make out?

Answer 1

Same reason the earth seems flat.

Answer 2

An interesting little book is "FLatland" by Edwin Abbott Abbott written in the late nineteenth century about two dimensional beings and their encounter three dimensional beings. A little ahead of his time.

Answer 3

i know about flat landers.. but the earth seems flat just because we cannot make out its extremely small curvature from where we are standing..

so you mean to say that we are also distorted but can't make out?

Answer 4

we do leave ripples in space-time with our mass. the ripples left by the earth and sun are so much larger, they "drown out" the distortions we pitiful earthlings create.

Answer 5

Fraser.. i wasn't talking about the distortions in space that we create.. i was just talking about we being distorted ALONG with the space..distorted by earth and others

Answer 6

then it's the same argument as flatlands

Answer 7

so only a higher dimensional being can see us being distorted right?

Answer 8

Mashy: I mean the distortion is so small so as not to be noticable at our scale. But on second thought doesn't light travel along the dimensional lines. We could be tied in knots and not know (see) it. like light traveling through a fiber optic cable???

Answer 9

the bending of light can be seen.. and was confirmed.. and thus general relativity was first confirmed :-/.. gravitational lensing is easily confirmable!

Answer 10

exacly, but bent mrad of arc by a hugely massive object over a large distance (diameter of the sun.). If we are distorted don't you think we are just used to it because we never seen ourselves undistorted? We could check that out in deep space with no significant gravitational force near.

Answer 11

hmmm could be.. anyways ll close this :P.