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Einstein's Other Theory of Everything

nautil.us

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Re: Einstein's Other Theory of Everything

#3
An alternative to the “ball on rubber sheet” model of gravity is “twisting a lump out of a sheet of silly putty.” You get the same curvature without relying on gravity to serve as a model of gravity (which always bothered me a bit)

For clarity, here’s what I mean: if you flatten out some silly putty (or pizza dough should work) then pinch and twist together some of the sheet into a lump, that pulls along the surrounding putty. So, if you drew lines on the putty then pulled it into lumps, you’d see the distortion to the lines.

Re: Einstein's Other Theory of Everything

#5
post #4

Physicists didnt abandon this idea, Wheeler's geometrodynamics was all about the concept of geometry being relevant for more than grabity. As it happens with so many cool ideas it did not germinate something useful.

Grabity is such an apt typo for gravity

Re: Einstein's Other Theory of Everything

#7
post #4

Physicists didnt abandon this idea, Wheeler's geometrodynamics was all about the concept of geometry being relevant for more than grabity. As it happens with so many cool ideas it did not germinate something useful.

Grabity is such an apt typo for gravity

And your comment is a perfect demonstration of the fragility of the universe: what if the OP edits and corrects their typo?

Edit: edited after 57 minutes - pedantic nerd here :)

Re: Einstein's Other Theory of Everything

#9
post #3

An alternative to the “ball on rubber sheet” model of gravity is “twisting a lump out of a sheet of silly putty.” You get the same curvature without relying on gravity to serve as a model of gravity (which always bothered me a bit) For clarity, here’s what I mean: if you flatten out some silly putty (or pizza dough should work) then pinch and twist together some of the sheet into a lump, that pulls along the surround…

That's a pretty clever model. Do you know any videos demonstrating it?

Re: Einstein's Other Theory of Everything

#10
post #3

An alternative to the “ball on rubber sheet” model of gravity is “twisting a lump out of a sheet of silly putty.” You get the same curvature without relying on gravity to serve as a model of gravity (which always bothered me a bit) For clarity, here’s what I mean: if you flatten out some silly putty (or pizza dough should work) then pinch and twist together some of the sheet into a lump, that pulls along the surround…

The recursive model always bothered me too. That’s nice, though harder to explain in words.
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