∆ Ant Attack Explanation.

Diagram - Starlight is in a sense both straight - and curved - if it passes through warped space near a massive object. To make this more comprehensible we can imagine putting a very long 'straight' ruler along the same path as the starlight.

This ruler would be bent because the space it is in is bent - but if we looked along it - the standard check to see if a thing is straight - it would indeed be straight. Because the space near the mass is contracted or dilated, in sense the increments on the ruler would be closer in the warped space.

Because the ruler is a single solid object we can imagine sending a (very!) long line of ants along it. In doing this we can see how it makes sense to say that the bugs at every point would be able to see their leader, and would not feel separated because 'time was passing more slowly' for the bugs ahead or behind them and nearer the mass.

So we can also imagine, that near the mass, things are more compressed and can be 'moving and changing more slowly' -just 'now' in that area.

And all of this need only be happening 'now' and not because a thing called time exists - which is being slowed as it passes from an invisible future through an infinitely thing present into an invisible past. (the second picture is from Feynman's 6 not so easy pieces showing a similar point).

(This page opened in a new Window or Tab - Close, or click back to continue).