Is gravity a force OR the warping of space and time.?

Question

I am confused here.

As I understand, Gravity is teh warping of space and time.
On this premise I dont see the requirement for a force particle such as teh Graviton.

If you fell into a black hole, would you be ripped particle by particle due to accelleration of teh nearest part of you being faster than the furthest part of you.
OR
Would you remain in tact and feel nothing too bad as you are only feeling the warp of space and time. i.e. you dont feel any different but observers would see you stretching really long.

I dont see that gravity is a force like Electro weak, and strong forces etc.

For the black hole I dont believe you would be ripped bit by bit as I dont think the space portion is the stretchy bit, rather the time thing would be stretchy bit, hence the reason why you would look stretched.

on this, you would not feel gravity until you reached the surface of the mass causing gravity, at which point the gravitation would be felt and you would be squished into it.

Adding to its mass and hence adding to its event horizon.

Answer 1

Gravity is not a force in the normal sense of the word. If it were, then you would feel the effects of the force when you are in free fall (i.e. you would feel the acceleration due to F=ma - like you do in a car that's accelerating). The fact that you do not is what Einstein struggled with in his General Theory. He figured out that the force that you do feel due to gravity is the force that is applied to keep you from moving in the direction that the spacetime curvature dictates for you.

The best example I can think of is the equivalence between a rocket accelerating upward at 1G in open space and the same rocket sitting on the ground on earth. If there are no windows in the rocket, then there is no way to tell the difference between these two cases. What Einstein said (and I believe him) was that the reason you can't tell the difference is that THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE. The acceleration at 1 G is the same thing as the surface of the earth preventing you from moving inward in free fall. Therefore, the gravity does not create a force, we (or the surface of the earth) create a force to resist it.

Answer 2

Scientific theory works by making a model. The model does no more than describe reality. It does not follow that because Einstein's model of mass distorting space behaves like gravity then that is what gravity is. It may be. However if we discover a gravitational effect which is inconsistent with the idea of warping space, then the theory is wrong! The absence of contradicting evidence does not mean that the theory is right. You can never know that.

Answer 3

According to Einstein and General relativity, gravity is not a force, but the warping of spacetime exactly as you've described it. Some of the effects of gravity can also be equivalently explained by using a force particle in flat spacetime.

If you were close to a black hole, you would be stretched apart by tidal forces, and you would certainly feel it. At least for as long as you lived. Your feet would be pulled on harder than your head, and it would rip you apart.

Answer 4

Both. It is a force that warps space and time.

Think of a netted (webbing) hammock that someone flops into (that's gravity) and how the lines of the webbing become distorted based on the mass.

Put a quarter on a tightly made bed near the head and a 25 pound weight near the foot.

The head is the EArth and the foot is a Black Hole.

Look at the distortions of the blanket.

That's the way Einstein basically preceived it.

Answer 5

Gravity is a force related to mass and the fabric of space. Just imagine a marble on your bed once you lay down that marble will roll towards you. Thats how the relation of space and gravity is theorized. But gravity is a very weak and mysterious force in comparison with the other forces in the universe. There are no particles or visible evidence to relate it to.

Answer 6

gravity is a force caused by the warping of space and time, its one of the only 4 real forces in the world, gravity, electromagnetism, weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force. and until you reached close to the singularity of the black hole you would just feel like you were on a very fast roller coaster. once you reached the singularity of the black hole youd b ripped apart. and once your in billions of pieces stretching is kind of an understatement.

Answer 7

Gravity is a force.

At this time there is a lot of conjecture about what actually happens within a black hole. No one knows for sure because they are invisible to the naked eye, but detectable on radio telescopes. The exact consequences of falling into one are rather obscure also and not really worth bantering about night after night because no one has ever visited one, and most likely will not ever do so within our lifetimes. It is for sure that you will not get a good shoe shine as you pass by one.

Answer 8

Well, the problem is that we don't know HOW gravity warps space, or once it is "warped", why am i impeled towards that warp and not away from it? So warping may explain the topology, but still not the "how".

Answer 9

Gravity is a curvature of space-time that manifests itself to us as a force.

Answer 10

Well, you've just put your finger upon why Gen Rel. theory is not compatable with quantum theory....