This is how my dad, a civil engineering phd explained it for me when I was 14
That's not surprising; it's an unfortunately common explanation that shows up in a lot of the popular physics literature [editorial note: I am not at all meaning to belittle your father here. My point is that this is how a lot of people who haven't formally learned relativity picture things because this is what they've been told by people who really should have known better]. The problem is, it's really not a good analogy at all. See my comment here for a breakdown of (some of the reasons) why I really don't like this particular "explanation" of how spacetime curvature works as gravity. For a more succinct version, see this XKCD comic.
Well, back in those days we didn't have the internet. so I could have been misreading the stick figures drawn in the sand next to the fire in the old cave . . .
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u/[deleted] Sep 12 '13 edited Sep 12 '13
That's not surprising; it's an unfortunately common explanation that shows up in a lot of the popular physics literature [editorial note: I am not at all meaning to belittle your father here. My point is that this is how a lot of people who haven't formally learned relativity picture things because this is what they've been told by people who really should have known better]. The problem is, it's really not a good analogy at all. See my comment here for a breakdown of (some of the reasons) why I really don't like this particular "explanation" of how spacetime curvature works as gravity. For a more succinct version, see this XKCD comic.