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Originally Posted by HankSolo
Kilopi, thanks for the bullet/ball example. I read where you wrote that elsewhere, and I keep it in mind.
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Oh yeah! You asked
that question before.
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So there has to be a relationship between the amount of space-time distance that an object travels in a given amount of time, and where that object's orbit exists in the gravity well. Therefore, Pluto should be traveling much faster than Mercury. The farther out you orbit, the faster you should be going. The closer objects may seem to be faster, but that is because they are deeper in the gravity well, and actually traveling through more and more stretched-out space-time the closer they get, making them appear faster. Likewise, an object traveling towards the sun appears to accelerate, but actually its velocity does not change in relation to space-time as it is still covering the same amount of space-time per second, but the space-time is being stretched more and more the closer it gets.
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You have to be careful with phrases like "space-time per second." It's a good joke to talk about our journey into the future at a rate of one second per second, but that's kinda like saying I'm walking one mile per mile. What else would you be doing--what possible sense would there be to a "rate" of two miles per mile? (I'm going to think about that.)
If mass curves space, it is curved more the closer to the mass. That's why Mercury can go faster in a circular orbit than Pluto and not fall into the Sun. If Pluto were to go faster, it would speed out of orbit. Just like a golf ball on a green--the faster it rolls, the less it is affected by the undulations of the grass.