this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2024
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No Stupid Questions

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Light travels along geodesics that curve because spacetime itself is curved. Geodesics are curves that minimize distance between two points in a curved space. They are considered straight lines in a curved space, but it's right there in the definition. Geodesics are curves. Our reality is a curved space, therefore straight lines in our curved space are curves. They are not straight.

Our reality is not matiematically flat. It is matiematically curved.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

From the point of view of light, it is traveling in a straight line. It does not observe the curve therefore spacetime isn't curved to it. There is no preferred reference frame.

It is the same with special relativity. If a particle is moving at near light speed, you observe it as heavier. But from the particle's point of view it is you who are moving and you are heavier.

Curved spacetime is a mathematical transformation to reconcile the different reference frames in the same way time dilation is a transform between reference frames.

There is no absolute frame of reference.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

You're not taking about the same thing as everyone else.

You're comparing reality to reality, curvature to curvature. We're talking mathematical theory. There's nothing about our reality of spacetime that meets the definition of mathematically flat.

Type however many paragraphs you want about reference frames. None of them adhere to being mathematically flat. They are all curved spacetime.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

There is no absolute frame of reference!

Light travels mathematically straight in one frame of reference but curved in another. Both are correct. You use mathematical transforms to map one coordinate system onto another in the same way you can map a mathematical straight line into curved geometry.

https://www.einstein-online.info/en/spotlight/equivalence_light/

Look at the example they gave of light in an accelerating elevator (which is actually an example written by Einstein in one of his books on relativity). One has straight light and the other is curved. Both reference frames are correct.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

There's no absolute frame refrence in physics. We're talking math theory here.

Light in an accelerating elevator is physics. Light in an anything is physics.

https://xkcd.com/435/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The math that describes light in one reference frame is a mathematically perfect straight line. In a different reference frame the math that describes light is curved.

Just like a straight line in one coordinate system can be transformed into a curved line in another system.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

You're just repeating yourself. It doesn't make you right.

A straight line in a curved space that adheres to the curved space is still a curved line. An actual straight line exists between the two same points that is shorter than the path light would take. That is the mathematical minimum distance.