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I´m already quite familiar with concepts of spacetime curvature and have heard of the metaphor of two men walking north on the Earth appearing to gravitate towards one another as they approach the north pole. My only current issue is that this metaphor is for two moving objects, and yet non moving objects still are affected by gravity. The only other major metaphor is the sheet of fabric metaphor which I personally dislike due to its usage of gravity to explain gravity. My current assumption is that it´s because we´re moving through time even when we aren´t moving through space but this is just an assumption and I´d appreciate a more scientific answer to my question.

Qmechanic
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JohnIsBueno
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    The most fundamental answer to your question is that if you use GR to predict how objects will move under the influence of gravity, then its predictions match experimental observations extremely well. I suspect this answer would be unsatisfying, however ... can you elaborate on what kind of an answer you're looking for? For example, do you want to know how to motivate the assumptions of GR starting from Newtonian physics? – J. Murray Mar 13 '23 at 00:54
  • Even the Newton's theory of gravity can be modelled by differential geometry to be the result of a 4-D curved space-time. See https://physics.stackexchange.com/a/754579/195949 – Claudio Saspinski Mar 13 '23 at 01:31
  • Your assumption is correct. These questions have been asked a number of times on this site, e.g. https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/102910/, https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/3009/, https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/222390/ – Kris Walker Mar 13 '23 at 01:59
  • Does this help? It uses the ant metaphor and goes beyond it. A new way to visualize General Relativity. This one is a bit more mathematical. Geodesics and Relativity – mmesser314 Mar 13 '23 at 02:17
  • In the model (it is stronger than mere metaphor) of two men approaching the to the North Pole, the latitude is to be considered a time dimension. Imagine they are on conveyor belts if you want to. As you say yourself, there are no stationary objects; everything moves forwards in time! – m4r35n357 Mar 13 '23 at 09:22

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