What explanation does general relativity provide for gravity?

By politicalwag.com | July 25, 2010

What explanation does general relativity provide for gravity?
Gravity is a result of curved spacetime.
Gravity is directly proportional to mass.
Gravity is inversely proportional to radius.
All of these are correct.

In GR, gravity is a result of the curvature of space-time.  Unaccelerated objects moving through flat space-time move in straight lines, but in curved space-time they move in curves.

Pick up "Gravitation" by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler for some relatively accessible explanations of this.

2 Responses to “What explanation does general relativity provide for gravity?”

  1. Engineer-Poet Says:
    July 25th, 2010 at 5:37 am

    In GR, gravity is a result of the curvature of space-time.  Unaccelerated objects moving through flat space-time move in straight lines, but in curved space-time they move in curves.

    Pick up "Gravitation" by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler for some relatively accessible explanations of this.
    References :
    "Gravitation" by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler

  2. tonyma90 Says:
    July 25th, 2010 at 6:17 am

    You’re right, gravity is a result of curved spacetime, because planets that have mass occupy a region of space, and in that region, if you look at it from a 3 dimensional grid, you’ll see that the object causes a curve in that region, thus things traveling through the curve will change direction, thus never traveling in a straight line. In fact, there is no such thing as a straight line in this universe as according to relativity.
    References :

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