In general relativity, a straight line is defined (or, in a sense, replaced?) by the path a light beam takes. In Newtonian physics, another way to approximate a straight line between two points is to tighten a sufficiently light string between them. Is this method applicable in curved spacetime? Would such a string tend to a path light would take? What if there are multiple such paths?
Asked
Active
Viewed 90 times
2
-
It seems that you might be confusing space-time and space. Light has a geodesic worldline, it doesn't travel on a straight path through space. The last thing is not even meaningfull, space depends on a choice of split of the space-time. So you cannot use strings to replace worldlines. – MBN Feb 14 '22 at 08:39