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lubujacksontoday at 3:29 PM5 repliesview on HN

Imagine you are driving in a car coming up parallel to the sun on your left. Time moves a bit faster for you on the left side than the right side. This slight speedup makes your left side traverse space faster than the right side, which causes a slight drift to the left (and also makes you spin).

Now just add massive scale and distances.


Replies

bobbylarrybobbytoday at 4:34 PM

How does this cause a point particle to accelerate towards the sun? Must be something about the gradient, but how does the gradient of time cause you to curve towards the sun?

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TACIXATtoday at 3:56 PM

That's a very cool analogy but I might not be understanding something here. Why then do objects that have no light have gravity? If 99% comes from time dilation, why am I stuck to the earth rather than drifting toward light sources?

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AnimalMuppettoday at 3:58 PM

One nit: Time moves a bit slower on the sun's side.

Other than that, thank you for a very clear explanation.

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alfiedotwtftoday at 4:29 PM

I’m going to ask the obvious next question… so if the sun and me in the car are next to each other but stationary, where is the attraction coming from now? As in, time may make the closer side slower, because we’re stationary, there’s no drift etc

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djsamsengtoday at 3:47 PM

If the sun is on my left, doesn’t that mean time moves a bit slower on my left and the slowdown on the left means I’ve traveled less on my left side? Thus I turn left toward the sun.

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