This is a joke about Einstein’s form of the Equivalence Principle:
Comment on You have 8 seconds.
hsdkfr734r@feddit.nl 1 year ago
I don’t understand. What’s a uniform gravitational field and why does it feel like standing in an accelerating elevator?
GrabtharsHammer@lemmy.world 1 year ago
hsdkfr734r@feddit.nl 1 year ago
The weak equivalence principle, also known as the universality of free fall or the Galilean equivalence principle can be stated in many ways.
And
“… in a uniform gravitational field all objects, regardless of their composition, fall with precisely the same acceleration.” “The weak equivalence principle implicitly assumes that the falling objects are bound by non-gravitational forces.”[11]
I’m just beginning to understand. I’m not there yet.
itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 year ago
If you are standing in a closed box, there is no experiment you can make that tells you whether that box is standing on earth, or is on a rocket in space accelerating at 9.81m/s²
This has a bunch of interesting implications about the nature of spacetime
woodenghost@hexbear.net 1 year ago
It’s just that normal gravity on earth feels exactly like being in an accelerating escalator in space. So you can’t tell the difference from the inside. Like in the elevator you can ask them, wether your still on earth or accelerating in space. Einstein used this thought experiment to develop the general theory of relativity.
hsdkfr734r@feddit.nl 1 year ago
Aaah. I understand. :)