The Dilemma of Space, Time, and the Quanta Part 2

Of Warps and Ripples 

The equivalence principle or the principle of equivalence declares that all constant velocity observers are subject to an identical set of physical laws and that, therefore, every constant velocity observer is justified in claiming that he or she is at rest. Now this should sound familiar from the last post where we used an example of being in space and watching someone pass by. This principle is a key role in general relativity. After this fundamental development Einstein declared that matter creates curves in spacetime.  So let's further on this point, in the absence of any matter of energy we can envision that space is flat. So you may ask what happens when a massive object is present in space. The massive object would, as all objects do, exert a gravitational force on other objects. This massive object would cause the fabric of space to warp, like a bowling ball placed on a sheet of rubber. As illustrated in the picture below.

Instead of space being a backdrop of events and occurrences in the universe, its shape responds to objects in it. The warping of space then affect nearby objects making them move in a distorted spatial fabric. This explains "going into an orbit", the sun creates this warp in the fabric of space. The planets orbiting are moving along the valley of in the warped spatial fabric. From this and Einstein's teachings we can say that, that warping in space IS GRAVITY ITSELF! Not only that but any object with mass will cause space to wrap. Earth is not held by the gravitational pull of other objects that guide it along valleys in warped space. As Einstein would show objects instead move along the paths of least resistance or shortest possible route. Something also to consider is that the warping of space is not a two dimensional warp but a three dimensional wrap. A warp in time is most severe in much stronger gravitational fields. Time will move slower in these types of gravitational fields like on the outside of a black hole. Yes, were about to get into black holes, but only briefly this time. Let's say you got to a black hole's event horizon, which at that point you are being draw towards the black hole, you are doomed. If you dropped feet first into a black hole as you grew closer to the center you'd get uncomfortable. The gravitational pull would increase so much that it would grow stronger on your feet than your head. This would cause you to be stretched into tiny pieces, those pieces would also be stretched into tiny pieces as well, and so on and so on. But let us say you were on a cable an inch above the event horizon of a massive black hole you'd find that time would be much slower. A watch would tick ten thousand times more slowly than an ordinary watch. You'd in fact upon returning to Earth find that more than ten thousand years have passed since you've been gone. This is because the gravitational pull was so strong that it warped time. A diagram of a black hole is below.

This will be where we end for this post, but next post will touch on the expansion of the universe and microscopic weirdness. As always if you have questions feel free to ask and I'll try my best to answer you.