Gravity Rubber Sheet Animation

A rubber sheet is stretched over a quilting ring.

Gravity rubber sheet animation.

English english french german italian russian spanish portuguese dutch greek japanese korean. Here we have 1 space like dimension and one time like dimension curved into 3d. If a marble is placed onto the rubber sheet it will roll toward the bowling ball and may even be put into orbit around the bowling ball. The rubber sheet analogy for einstein s general relativity model of gravity is a popular way to visualize the effect mass has on the curvature of spacetime.

Let me try the ant analogy in a bit more detail. The orange is curved space time. The ants walk forward. The dented rubber sheet done in earth s gravity is a not too bad analogy for newtonian gravity.

A standard way to illustrate this idea is to place a bowling ball representing a massive object such as the sun onto a stretched rubber sheet representing spacetime. So the motion of a marble on a deformed rubber sheet is entirely unlike the motion of a plant around star or any small object moving around a large one under the force of gravity.