Einstein's Theory of Space Distortion

Hello there, I would like to discuss and hopefully debate about gravity.

Sir Issac Newton's laws of gravity revolutionized our way of thinking of the universe and mostly everybody in the whole world accepts it. They accept that gravity is universal. But then Albert Einstein said that gravity does not exist. He theorized that why planets and other celestial objects orbit is because there is a dent or warp in space time. (Check example picture below)
Space Distortion

So who is correct Newton or Einstein?

reply to post by LEO006


I think it is safe to say that neither of them are completely correct.

What needs to be re-considered when talking gravity, and taking into account, are theese things:

- rotation of earth around its own axis
- rotation of earth around the sun
- rotation of our galaxy
- in other words, centripedal and centrifugal spiral motions and their effects
- double functions, that both pushes and pulls
- relations and interaction between positiv and negative charge and forces
- the socalled "frame dragging" effect
- and possibly alot of other things

sometimes we need to turn things around...
In the search of trying to understand what holds things together, we seem to have forgetten to try and understand what keeps things apart.

There is indeed a double effect existing, of both push and pull, not just pull...
Gravity is depending on both the forces around and within...

- Why does a blown soapboble always become round in shape?
- why are all the planets round in shape?
- how come the dinosaurs didn't collaps under their own wiegth?

Gravity could indeed have been a variable that have changes over time.
We most remember that our lifetime on this earth is but a drop in the ocean of time.
And maybe the gravity of earth was not so strong in the old days, allowing things to grow into huge proportions, and over time changed, to reach a state of equilibrium with the surroundings?

We must always remember that we are in constant movement within a system in motion.

All science communities are still trying to get a grasp of gravity, and the issue is still open for debate.



[edit on 25-1-2008 by Bluess]

What needs to be re-considered when talking gravity, and taking into account, are theese things:

- planets orbiting its own axis

I would like to talk about why the planets spin on its own axis. Newton's theory about gravity states that the planet has a gravitational force in the center that holds the planet together.

Let's take a star for example, when a star runs out of hydorgen fuel it starts to cool and shrinks. Then it starts collapsing under its own weight by the gravity within it. Afterwards it explodes, etc, etc.

How can the dent (using Enstein's theory) make the planet orbit on its axis? Could it be that the dent makes the planet stay in one place like you spin a bouncy ball in a bowl. But preety soon the ball stops right? Why doesn't the Earth stop spinning?

Please feel free to respond and debunk everything I just said. Ideas are open to me and I try to respond them when I check this thread.

Well both are correct in a way. Newton only described how gravity effects objects, but didn’t include a mechanism behind it. Einstein later described gravity as a “fictitious” force, that was a product of geometry. But this isn’t the same as saying gravity doesn’t exist. His work expanded on the concept of gravity, but at the most basic level, they are not too different. The strength of gravity in both weaken as you move farther away, both have more massive objects generating stronger fields, both have an equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass. Newton’s law of gravity still works very well in many cases.

Einstein later described gravity as a “fictitious” force, that was a product of geometry. But this isn’t the same as saying gravity doesn’t exist. His work

What do you mean a "product of geometry"? Can you explain this in further detail please.

[edit on 27-1-2008 by LEO006]

Well image that you are on a merry go round that is rotating really fast. You have a ball in your hand and you drop it. From your perspective, the ball will fly away from the center of the merry go round, yet from the perspective of someone on the ground. The ball will simply fly straight ahead, with the same velocity it had when you let go of it. From your perspective, the ball is said to have “fictitious” forces applied to in, the centrifugal and the coriolis forces. But these forces just account for the accelerations you perceive since you are rotating. Thus those forces are geometric of origin.

All fictitious forces provide an accelerration to an object that is independent of its mass, so according to F=ma, the more mass an object as, the more force that these fictitious forces must apply to it. The gravitational force also has this property, which is where Einstein found his inspiration for the equivalence principle and general relativity.

In general relativity, an object moving in an gravitational field from its perspective, is moving in a straight line, but to an observer outside, it is moving in a curved path. This is due to the curvature of space, thus the force is of geometric origin.

This site does a great job at explaining the gravitational effects of curved space.