elephant wrote:
> Actually you seem to be saying that, in relativity,
> gravitation is a lot like what happens to a light 'wave' when it hits a pane
> of glass, or the surface of the water, at an angle - refraction. The
> sub-atomic particles in the apple are changing direction just a bit less
> quickly when they near the earth, so that the apple performs a 'break turn'
> towards the earth like a canoe with a paddle in the water. Atleast, that's
> how it looks to us - but in reality what's happening is that, for the
> particles in question, time itself is running slower - that's why they "run
> on" towards the earth just a tiny bit more than their normal trajectory-wizz
> around the nucleous would allow for.
>
> Ok, am I anywhere near?
This is interesting. What you are describing is an *additional* gravitational
effect that I omitted. What I described, time dilation, and what you are
describing, a gravitational lens, both contribute to gravitation. The two effects
are cumulative.
> Supplementary: WHY is time supposed to run slower nearer to massive bodies?
>
> - or, are we maybe to take this idea as definitional of the relative "speed
> of time" and of "massive bodies" in just the same way that Newton's laws
> are definitional of force and mass?
Exactly. If you can determine why time is slower within a gravitational field, you
will either be hailed as the greatest genius since Einstein himself, or condemned
as a crackpot (and hailed as a genius in the future).
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