A few things I don't understand...

[Guest kyle8921]

How can time and matter switch places? What exactly happens?

 

And, I don't really understand space-time. So, we have the three dimensions of existence, but time is one too? We can move through time and not move through space, but we can't move through space without moving through time? What exactly does it mean? I've read that gravity is only caused by a distortion in space-time. What does that exactly mean too?I'm a visual person, and this whole concept is nearly impossible to represent with pictures...

 

I once read though, that if you placed a bowling ball on top of a rubber sheet, it would of course fall down to the center. And if you dropped a baseball down, it would roll down the sheet to the bowling ball, and this represents the "distortion" or space-time and smaller objects moving to bigger ones. But without the gravity of Earth, the bowling ball wouldn't have fallen down, so the only reason the baseball fell was because of the Earth..

 

I just need a little clarification. Thanks!

[sanctus]

I asked already twice this question:what is space time?

And nobody ever could answer well, reason nobody really knows. I didn't find the old threads (due to lack of time), but I will soon have more time.

[Qfwfq]

and this whole concept is nearly impossible to represent with pictures...

Actually that stuff can be understood graphically, but I can't draw many pictures here. It's enough to understand it for one space dimension and time. If you think of the vertical axis as being time then a still point will be a vertical line, a moving point will be an inclined line.

 

But without the gravity of Earth, the bowling ball wouldn't have fallen down, so the only reason the baseball fell was because of the Earth..

The stretched rubber surface is only an analogy so don't take it too literally in detail.

 

How can time and matter switch places? What exactly happens?

;) To tell you the truth, I don't know what that's referred to.