Gravitational waves / Elementary tour part 1: The rhythm of geometry
Distortions of geometry: what does that mean? First of all, distances shrink and expand in a certain coordinated way. That's the main mechanism by which gravitational waves act on the rest of the world: they rhythmically distort distances between freely ...
General relativity / Elementary Tour part 2: The cosmic dance
In this new picture, there is no gravitational force that masses exert on other masses. Instead, there are spacetime distortions. Spacetime in the presence of a mass is curved. In flat, empty spacetime, small test particles follow straight lines. However, ...
