Uh, I'm just trying to understand this here.. say I had a perfectly flat plane, and I drew a set of perfectly parallel lines- does this mean that I could theoretically draw a third line that was parallel to one, but intersected the other-- in the real world? If some parts of space are hyperbolic and other parts are elliptical, does that mean that from the point of view of one line, a parallel line would look wavy? Would a plane that followed euclidean geometry actually be wavy?
I haven't actually read much about relativity, so forgive me if I'm not making sense...
2006-07-11 21:17:56 · 4 answers · asked by -artifex 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Mathematics
Alright, let me see if I have thls straight: say you had a line, made by the movement of a point at a given velocity- if you put a camera at one end of the line, the line would look perfectly straight (i.e. it would look like a point), but if you changed the perspective, the line would look curved?
2006-07-12 07:01:29 · update #1
Well, that depends on what you define a perfectly flat plane. You wouldn't consider it to be perfectly flat if the edges didn't adhere to euclidian parallelism. So space might be non-euclidian, but once you view it as such, euclidian axioms don't hold any more, so you shouldn't make assumptions based on your (euclidian) view.
I suggest reading a bit more about the subject, it is not something that can be explained very easily in a small amount of words.
2006-07-11 21:31:45 · answer #1 · answered by bjbjbjbj 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Yeah its pretty weird stuff... what Einstein said was you can't draw some rigid three dimensional grid with all nice parallel lines and right angles because space itself (and everything in it) is warped into other directions and curvatures by large gravitational bodies like planets and especially stars. Essentially our planet does not orbit the sun... it travels in the best straight line through the space which is curved around on itself by the gravitational attraction of the sun.
2006-07-12 04:28:23 · answer #2 · answered by eggman 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes u r right the universe that we live in is more complicated and doesn't follow Euclidean geometry.
An E.g.
Addition of all angles of triangle is 180. (on a flat surface)
but when we draw the same on sphere it is in fact more that 180.
We forget the assumption (flat or plan surface) in euclidean geometry and tend to apply it to the universe we live in.
2006-07-12 04:32:27 · answer #3 · answered by r_v_kale 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I majored in English. I haven't a clue what to say, but it sounds like a great question. Someone on this site will know the answer.
2006-07-12 04:22:02 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋