Are space and time curved?

Question

And if so, what does this mean?

I've been reading about Einstein and Hawkings, and they're a little over my head....Any explanations of these theories?

Answer 1

Spacetime can be assumed as a fabric, like a muti-layered trampoline, if you please, according to Albert Einstein, the inventor of Special & General Relativities. So, if you exert pressure or do work on this fabric, it would bend just as a trampoline does when a gymnast performs stunts on it. Black holes, worm holes, & white holes are possible due to this curvature of spacetime.

In general relativity, it is assumed that spacetime is curved by the presence of matter (energy), this curvature being represented by the Riemann tensor. In special relativity, the Riemann tensor is identically zero, and so this concept of "non-curvedness" is sometimes expressed by the statement "Minkowski spacetime is flat."

Many space-time continua have physical interpretations which most physicists would consider bizarre or unsettling. For example, a compact spacetime has closed, time-like curves, which violate our usual ideas of causality (that is, future events could affect past ones). For this reason, mathematical physicists usually consider only restricted subsets of all the possible spacetimes. One way to do this is to study "realistic" solutions of the equations of general relativity. Another way is to add some additional "physically reasonable" but still fairly general geometric restrictions, and try to prove interesting things about the resulting spacetimes. The latter approach has led to some important results, most notably the Penrose-Hawking singularity theorems.

Answer 2

Yes, you need to research Einstein;s theory of General Relativity.

Answer 3

Space is curved. The curving of space is caused by the mass of an object, the bigger the object, the bigger the curve in space. This is what gravity is believed to be.

Answer 4

I instill the Logic Theory of Time - Time is constant and if you move faster you can get more done in the same amount of time.