Space Time...curved or not?
Accompanied Cypher to the library the other day, and picked up this book called “Einstein’s Universe” by A. Zee(quite a name)…its been a very slow read, what with the exams and all, in fact some people suggested “exams aane wale hain, abhi kyon le raha hai” but I was like, what the hell let me just issue it anyways…
Yeah so I have been reading this book, it generally talks about the theories involving the contemporary universe and how it came to be so…basically everyday phenomenon that we all observe but are too busy to think about, and then it just builds on these facts to go on to the more complex phenomena such as curvature of space time and black holes.
The phenomenon of curvature of space time really interests me, ever since I heard about it I have wondered “how can the space be curved?”, I mean then everything would be curved right? Very hard to imagine…but the author has given an excellent analogy, consider a drawing of a creature who lives in a 2D space, i.e. just take a piece of paper and draw and animal on it, now when you bend the piece of paper, in effect the creature’s space is curved but there is no way for the creature to actually jump out of its universe and observe it. I found this concept pretty intriguing…
And another thing, the very basis of the curvature of space time is that we use light to measure long distances and that light bends under the influence of gravity? Now I found this analysis very flimsy…what if there was a beam of particles with the same speed as light but at the same time did not undergo deviation under the effect of a gravitational field…wouldn’t that change the whole scenario then??? So we have not discovered any particle beam like the one mentioned above, but what if….
Another fact that surprised me is that it does not take rocket science, but simplest of the equations we learnt in XI and XII standard to deduce these theories…I guess it’s just the vision that is required. Here, I am in no way trying to belittle the efforts of all the scientists who have formulated these theories, I respect them duly.
What I particularly liked about this book is that the author has managed to put forward all these complexities in a relatively simple manner, using relevant analogies to convey his ideas effectively, all in all making it a pretty good read for the interested…
Accompanied Cypher to the library the other day, and picked up this book called “Einstein’s Universe” by A. Zee(quite a name)…its been a very slow read, what with the exams and all, in fact some people suggested “exams aane wale hain, abhi kyon le raha hai” but I was like, what the hell let me just issue it anyways…
Yeah so I have been reading this book, it generally talks about the theories involving the contemporary universe and how it came to be so…basically everyday phenomenon that we all observe but are too busy to think about, and then it just builds on these facts to go on to the more complex phenomena such as curvature of space time and black holes.
The phenomenon of curvature of space time really interests me, ever since I heard about it I have wondered “how can the space be curved?”, I mean then everything would be curved right? Very hard to imagine…but the author has given an excellent analogy, consider a drawing of a creature who lives in a 2D space, i.e. just take a piece of paper and draw and animal on it, now when you bend the piece of paper, in effect the creature’s space is curved but there is no way for the creature to actually jump out of its universe and observe it. I found this concept pretty intriguing…
And another thing, the very basis of the curvature of space time is that we use light to measure long distances and that light bends under the influence of gravity? Now I found this analysis very flimsy…what if there was a beam of particles with the same speed as light but at the same time did not undergo deviation under the effect of a gravitational field…wouldn’t that change the whole scenario then??? So we have not discovered any particle beam like the one mentioned above, but what if….
Another fact that surprised me is that it does not take rocket science, but simplest of the equations we learnt in XI and XII standard to deduce these theories…I guess it’s just the vision that is required. Here, I am in no way trying to belittle the efforts of all the scientists who have formulated these theories, I respect them duly.
What I particularly liked about this book is that the author has managed to put forward all these complexities in a relatively simple manner, using relevant analogies to convey his ideas effectively, all in all making it a pretty good read for the interested…
posted by Photon at
1:34 PM
