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Gravitational time dilation is a form of time dilation, an actual difference of elapsed time between two events, as measured by observers situated at varying distances from a gravitating mass. The lower the gravitational potential (the closer the clock is to the source of gravitation), the slower time passes, speeding up as the gravitational ...
Daily time dilation (gain or loss if negative) in microseconds as a function of (circular) orbit radius r = rs/re, where rs is satellite orbit radius and re is the equatorial Earth radius, calculated using the Schwarzschild metric. At r ≈ 1.497 [Note 1] there is no time dilation. Here the effects of motion and reduced gravity cancel.
In the Schwarzschild solution, it is assumed that the larger mass M is stationary and it alone determines the gravitational field (i.e., the geometry of space-time) and, hence, the lesser mass m follows a geodesic path through that fixed space-time. This is a reasonable approximation for photons and the orbit of Mercury, which is roughly 6 ...
Objects are falling to the floor because the room is aboard a rocket in space, which is accelerating at 9.81 m/s 2, the standard gravity on Earth, and is far from any source of gravity. The objects are being pulled towards the floor by the same "inertial force" that presses the driver of an accelerating car into the back of their seat.
Phenomena that in classical mechanics are ascribed to the action of the force of gravity (such as free-fall, orbital motion, and spacecraft trajectories), correspond to inertial motion within a curved geometry of spacetime in general relativity; there is no gravitational force deflecting objects from their natural, straight paths.
Eventually, the vacuum of space will decay, and things will fall apart—in a zillion years. Our universe is glued together by quantum fields, like the Higgs, which set much of our physics.
The mere curvature of the path of a photon passing near the Sun is too small to have an observable delaying effect (when the round-trip time is compared to the time taken if the photon had followed a straight path), but general relativity predicts a time delay that becomes progressively larger when the photon passes nearer to the Sun due to the ...
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