12/25/2014
Visual depictions of gravity commonly use the example of a ball sitting on a trampoline with the mass of the ball curving spacetime represented by the trampoline.
The problem with simplifying the description of gravity with this example is that it might cause someone to imagine gravity or space-time itself as a flat surface. However, there is no such thing as "flat" in the universe. Telling a child that gravity is like a surface of anything is like telling a chile the Earth is flat.
In the upper left of the image below, we see the most common type of illustration used to represent gravity showing a flat surface being "dimpled", in the upper right we have what is a step closer to properly illustrating gravity in a more "3D" way, showing the force acting in all directions within a grid, but again it is still using flat faces, (this time 6 of them on a cube). The lower image is a much more accurate (yet still approximate) rendition of the dynamics of gravity: a hyperbolic toroidial field that incorporates the forces of torque, Coriolis forces and spin, as space-time doesn't just curve toward singularity, it actually curls as it curves, like water going down the drain, forming the dynamic and structure of a Torus.
It's time to stop flattening the description of the universe and depict it much more accurately. Now that we have a more coherent understanding of the forces of nature, so too should be our visual depictions of that understanding.
image: William Brown, resident scientist at The Resonance Project
Learn more > http://bit.ly/resonance-is-fb1
The Resonance Project - Traduction Française • The Resonance Project - Página Oficial Hispana • The Resonance Project em Português • Physics-astronomy • From Quarks to Quasars • The Mind Unleashed • (post by Jamie Janover)
