Rubber Sheet Theory

Picture a flat rubber sheet space time suspended above the ground.

Rubber sheet theory.

Deriving from einstein s notion of spacetime curvature a k a. The main topics of interest in topology are the properties that remain. The rubber sheet theory but that s just me one reason people struggle with the idea of prayer is that it sounds suspiciously like a fairy granting gifts. At its simplest spacetime can be thought of as a giant rubber sheet with a bowling ball in the centre.

The jiggling is driven by heat the usual driver of molecular motion. Topology branch of mathematics sometimes referred to as rubber sheet geometry in which two objects are considered equivalent if they can be continuously deformed into one another through such motions in space as bending twisting stretching and shrinking while disallowing tearing apart or gluing together parts. The theory assumes that as the rubber is stretched each crosslink remains stationary stuck to its local chunk of rubber even as the chains between crosslinks jiggle around. In the same way the ball would warp the sheet a planet bends the fabric of spacetime.

Einstein s general theory of relativity explains gravity as the curvature of space time. This incident helped me with what i call the rubber sheet theory of prayer. The 1940s theory predicts a linear relationship between the force and the amount of stretching. This can be repeated many times with no apparent degradation to the rubber.

Smoked sheet is folded into large bales for shipment to the processor it has a characteristic dark brown color in some cases the sheets are dried in hot air rather than smokehouses and the term air dried sheet is used. This is considered to be a better grade of rubber a still better grade called pale crepe rubber involves. It can be stretched by up to a factor of 10 from its original length and when released returns very nearly to its original length. Rubber is a member of a larger class of materials called elastomers and it is difficult to overestimate their economic and.

The rubber sheet analogy of gravity might go back to results in andrei sakharov vacvuum fluctuations in curved space and the theory of gravitation doklady akad. While intuitively appealing however the rubber sheet picture has its limitations. This concept can be pictured by imagining space time as a rubber sheet. The balls on the rubber sheet bend the sheet around them somewhat as matter bends space time in its vicinity.