Science
Out of context: Reply #118
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- ukit20
This is a pretty good analogy:
"It's all about mass and fabric. Every single atom (and most of the sub-atomic particles that make up atoms) has mass. And by mass I mean (grossly oversimplified) the amount of "stuff" in a particle.
When a particle has lots of mass, it actually warps the "fabric" of space around it. To illustrate this, picture a freshly made bed. The sheets are tight around the mattress. That's the "fabric of space". Now, scatter a few marbles on it. If you look closely, you see that each marble dents the fabric a little bit. If you marbles are close to each other, the dent in the fabric that each makes combine and the marbles touch.
Now imagine placing a bowling ball on the bed as well. Bowling balls have a lot of "stuff" in them, so the dent it makes is much bigger! It's so big that a number of marbles are affected by the dent in the fabric, and they slide down the slope towards the bowling ball. (you can't see it, but the bowling ball slides a tiny bit towards the marbles as well)
That's basically what gravity is. Only instead of a 2-dimensional bed, it's a three dimensional bed, it pulls in every direction, not just across a plane."