How General Relativity Produces Gravity
Mass/Energy Curves Space-Time
A massive body such as the Earth creates a significant curvature of space-time. The situation is analogous to setting a bowling ball on a bed; the heavy ball depresses a nearby region of the bed's surface.
Figure 1: A Bowling Ball Placed on a Bed
As the ball is lowered, the surface of the bed sinks.
Curvature of Space-Time Leads to Acceleration
When another object moves through space-time, it feels the curvature created by the massive body. A marble thrown onto the bed moves toward the bowling ball. Because its motion is not along a line and its speed changes, the marble is accelerating.
Figure 2: A Marble Moving on a Bed with the Bowling Ball on It
The marble moves along a curved trajectory and hits the ball.
This page was created by the staff of
Jupiter Scientific,
an organization devoted to the promotion of
science through books, the internet
and other means of communication.
This web page and its contents may NOT be copied onto other web
sites, but other sites may link to this page.
Copyright ©2002 by Jupiter Scientific
To Jupiter Scientific's Information Page