How Gravity Really Works

In this episode, we explore How Gravity Really Works. We will look beyond the familiar idea of gravity as a force that pulls objects together and examine a deeper possibility: that force of gravity may arise from the slowing of time and the contraction of space. By connecting insights from modern physics with Vedantic understanding, we will explore how spacetime, motion, and gravity may be interlinked at a much deeper level.

Introduction

Most of us first learned about gravity in school through the famous story of Isaac Newton sitting beneath a tree when an apple fell on his head. The story says that Newton began to wonder why the apple fell downward instead of moving in some other direction. This simple observation sparked his investigation into gravity. Over time, he made great progress and eventually expressed this force through a well-established mathematical formula. According to this formula, any two objects anywhere in the universe exert a gravitational pull on each other.

1. The greater the mass of the objects, the stronger the gravitational force between them.

2. The greater the distance between the objects, the weaker the force becomes. Even when objects are very far apart, the gravitational force still exists, but it becomes so small that it is almost negligible.

Newton discovered the formula for gravity, but he still did not understand how the force actually worked. Why should two objects separated by distance try to pull each other closer? What connects them? Is there some invisible string joining one object to another? Newton considered these questions carefully, but he was unable to answer them fully.

We experience the force of gravity everywhere, yet our understanding of how it functions remains limited. Physicists propose that gravity may be mediated by a force particle called the graviton. This particle is known in theory, but the graviton itself has not yet been discovered. At the end of this episode, we will suggest where the graviton particles might be found and how they may function.

Spacetime and Gravity

Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity gives us an important clue about how gravity functions. Einstein described gravity in terms of spacetime curvature. A helpful way to visualize this idea is to imagine a stretched rubber sheet. If a heavy ball is placed on the sheet, the sheet bends around it. The heavier the ball, the deeper the curve. Now imagine placing a smaller ball somewhere on that curved sheet. The smaller ball will roll down the curve toward the heavier ball. This rolling motion gives us a visual picture of gravitational attractions. If the smaller ball is farther away, the pull becomes weaker. If it is so far away that the curvature is almost absent, the pull still exists, but it becomes negligible.

The same principle can be applied to objects in the universe. Every object creates a curvature in spacetime. To understand this more clearly, let us look at a few examples of how gravity works in different situations.

1. The Sun is the heaviest object in our solar system, so it creates the largest curvature in the spacetime fabric. Earth and the other planets lie within this curvature. If gravity were the only factor, the planets would slide down this curve and eventually fall into the Sun. Fortunately, that does not happen. Why? Earth and other planets also have sideways motion. This horizontal velocity balances the inward pull of gravity and keeps the planets moving in stable paths around the Sun. Each planet remains within the Sun’s spacetime curvature, but the strength of the pull depends on distance. Mercury, being closest to the Sun, experiences the strongest pull, while Neptune, being farthest away, experiences the weakest pull.

2. From our point of view, Earth is the most dominant object around us. Its spacetime curvature is far greater than the curvature created by ordinary objects on Earth. As a result, objects near Earth are constantly drawn along this curvature toward Earth’s center. When we drop something, it falls toward the surface. This is why the apple in Newton’s story fell downward. Newton’s head simply interrupted the apple’s journey toward Earth’s surface.

3. Every object and every living being on Earth also curves spacetime. However, the curvature produced by such objects is extremely small. Therefore, the gravitational attraction between ordinary objects is negligible. It may be tiny, but it is not zero.

From these examples, it appears that the curvature of spacetime is responsible for gravitational attraction between objects. The stretched-rubber-sheet analogy gives us a useful visual model for understanding how gravity may function. However, this explanation does not fully solve the problem. The difficulty is that there is no physical fabric in outer space. No one has seen or discovered an actual fabric stretching across the universe. Einstein used the idea of spacetime fabric to explain gravity, but in reality, there is no visible material fabric in space. So how should we understand gravity if there is no physical material being bent or stretched in space?

Understanding Spacetime:

The word “spacetime” itself often creates confusion. In this discussion, it is important to understand that spacetime is not the same as physical space. Space is measured in terms of distance, whereas spacetime is understood here as being made of time. Time is the basic building block of the spacetime fabric. This distinction between space and spacetime must be clear before we move forward. We have discussed spacetime in several earlier episodes, including “Understanding the Fabric of Space.” Here, we will summarize a few key aspects of the spacetime fabric:

1. The spacetime fabric is made only of time.

2. Since the spacetime fabric is made of time, it begins at time = 0. As we have discussed in earlier episodes, the observer is the starting point of space. From this starting point, the farthest endpoint of the spacetime fabric corresponds to the Big Bang, approximately 13.7 billion years in the past. As time continues to flow, the spacetime fabric keeps expanding timewise.

3. Time is subtle and cannot be found as a physical object in space. Einstein described time as the fourth dimension. But where is this fourth dimension? Physical space has only three dimensions, so there is no obvious place for a fourth dimension within space itself. The only logical place for time to function is within the mind. For more detail, please listen to the episode “Understanding Time and its Powers.” Vedanta also explains that kaala, or time, is part of the mind. This would mean that the spacetime fabric is subtle and it is also part of the mind.

4. There is an energy in the cosmic mind that stretches time to create space. This special energy has the power to stretch time, and it may be the missing dark energy. According to modern science, dark energy makes up most of the energy content of the universe. In this model, dark energy stretches one second of the spacetime fabric to create 186,000 miles of space. Space is therefore created by the stretching of the spacetime fabric. For a detailed discussion, please listen to the episode “Connecting Dark Energy with Space.”

Interconnection—Motion, Time, and Space:

One of the major conclusions of Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity is that motion, time, and space are deeply interconnected. In simple terms, wherever there is motion, time slows down and space contracts. If you are moving, your clock ticks more slowly, and space in the direction of motion contracts. The faster you move, the slower time becomes and the greater the contraction of space. This relationship between motion, time, and space is a well-established result of relativity.

According to the usual interpretation of relativity, motion comes first: motion causes time to slow down and space to contract. But this raises difficult questions. Why should motion slow down time? Why should it contract space? What is the deeper connection among these three? Why should motion be the cause, while the effects appear in time and space? From the standpoint of Vedanta, this sequence is not correct. Vedanta teaches that time is subtle, whereas space and motion are gross. We observe space and motion in the universe “out there,” so they belong to the gross level of experience. Time, however, is not a physical object in space; it is subtle. Therefore, time must come first, and space and motion must follow. In Vedanta, the subtle is the cause, and the gross is the effect. Even quantum physics offers a similar suggestion through wave-particle duality: the wave, which is more subtle, comes first, and only later collapses in the presence of an observing system to appear as a particle.

The conventional view is that motion causes time to slow down and space to contract. In this discussion, however, we will reverse that order. The slowing of time comes first, and this slowing creates the conditions for motion to take place. This idea can be understood through the following two-step process.

Step 1. Time and Space: A good starting point is to understand how the slowing of time affects the spacetime fabric. What changes when time slows down? In this model, the slowing of time means that the spacetime fabric becomes more compressed. We have already seen that dark energy stretches one second of the spacetime fabric into 186,000 miles of space. Even when the fabric is compressed, one second is still stretched into 186,000 miles of space. However, from the perspective of an outside observer, the resulting space appears smaller than it would in an uncompressed fabric. Therefore, whenever time slows down, the spacetime fabric becomes more compressed, and this compression leads to a contraction of space. This shows a direct connection between time and space.

Step 2. Space and Motion: When space contracts, what happens to the objects within it? It is reasonable to expect that these objects would also move inward along with the contraction of space. A simple example can help clarify this idea. Imagine a rug with several objects placed on it. If you hold the rug and pull it toward yourself, the objects on the rug will move closer to you as well. In the same way, when space contracts, the objects present within that space are carried along with the contraction. They move from their original positions to new positions. This change in position is what we experience as motion. If space contracts continuously, then object motion will also continue. This may seem strange and counterintuitive, but in this model, contraction of space is the source of motion. For a more detailed explanation, please read the essay “Understanding Motion: Unraveling Nature’s Greatest Illusion.”

From the above discussion, we can summarize the sequence as follows: the slowing of time compresses the spacetime fabric; this compression causes space to contract; and the contraction of space produces object motion. We can therefore conclude that the slowing of time ultimately generates motion. This reaches the same relationship described by Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, but in the reverse order.

Gravity at Work:

We have just seen that the slowing of time gives rise to motion. The greater the slowing of time, the faster the motion becomes. Does this same reasoning apply to gravity? The answer is yes. Gravity can be understood as a special type of motion in which speed increases rapidly with the passage of time. In this model, time does not merely slow down; it slows down at a faster pace. This increasing slowdown compresses space more rapidly, and the faster compression of space produces accelerated motion of the objects on the spacetime fabric.

Let us understand this idea through a thought experiment. Imagine a person standing at the top of a tall building and preparing to jump. From our perspective, ordinary experience tells us that the person will fall downward until he reaches Earth’s surface. As he falls, his speed continues to increase. We usually describe this as the force of gravity pulling him downward. This is our everyday experience, and it is the usual way we understand gravity.

Now let us look at the same event from the perspective of the person jumping from the building. From his position, suppose he is able to “see” the timeline on the spacetime fabric.

As mentioned earlier, the spacetime fabric always begins with the observer. For this person, time = 0 is the starting point of the spacetime fabric. Even after the jump, time = 0 remains with the observer. The person continues to be located at the beginning of the spacetime fabric, and this starting point does not change. What, then, will he see? He will see time slowing down according to a squared sequence: time, time by two, time by four, time by 16, time by two hundred fifty-six and so on.

As the person encounters this rapid slowdown of time, what happens to space? From his perspective, space begins to contract in the same ratio. The surface of the Earth keeps coming closer to him quite rapidly. This contraction of space continues until the spacetime curvature reaches its end and the distance between the person and Earth’s surface becomes zero. Notice what this means: the person has not truly moved. He remains at time = 0, the starting point of the spacetime fabric. Instead, space itself has shrunk rapidly. The earth surface moves upwards closer to the observer. This may seem strange, but it is similar to pulling a rug while objects are resting on it. The person pulling the rug remains in place, but the rug shortens and the objects on it move closer. In the same way, space shrinks and Earth’s surface is brought closer to the person. The person does not move through space in the usual sense; rather, Earth’s surface approaches him with ever-increasing speed as space contracts.

From our perspective, the person falls because of gravitational pull. But from the perspective of the person who is falling, space is contracting, and Earth’s surface is approaching him—not the other way around.

This, then, is how gravity works. What we call gravitational pull is actually the shrinking of space that brings two objects closer together. In the rug example, pulling the rug brings the objects on it closer to the person holding it. The objects do not move by themselves; they are carried along with the rug. In the same way, objects in space are brought closer together because the space between them is contracting. The force behind this contraction is what we experience as gravity.

Therefore, gravity should not be understood as a force acting directly on objects in the usual sense. Rather, it should be understood as the contraction of space that causes objects to move closer to one another. The shrinking of space is the source of gravitational attraction. In this view, gravity is the power that compresses space and produces the motion we observe as falling, pulling, or attraction between objects.

Hunting for Graviton Particles:

The graviton is considered the missing force particle of gravity. Many physicists believe that this particle, if it exists, would help explain the source of gravitational attraction. Although scientists have searched for the graviton, it has not yet been discovered. It would seem that the difficulty may lie in where physicists are looking. If gravity is assumed to be a force acting directly on objects, then it is natural to search for the graviton within matter. But as we have just discussed, gravitational pull does not arise from a force acting directly on objects. Instead, it arises from the shrinking of space around objects, which brings them closer together.

Space is everywhere, the effect of gravity occurs in the space surrounding objects, not inside the objects themselves. Wherever space is shrinking, that is where graviton particles should be sought. To trace this process backward: space shrinks because time slows down, and time slows down because the spacetime fabric becomes more compressed. Therefore, the real source of the graviton should be found in the spacetime fabric. What causes time within the spacetime fabric to compress? The graviton is the particle responsible for compressing time, and the slowing of time is caused by the action of the graviton. For this reason, the graviton should not be searched for within matter, but within spacetime itself—especially in those regions of space around objects where space is actively shrinking. This is where physicists may need to focus if they want to find the missing graviton particle.

I hope you found this episode insightful and thought provoking. In this discussion, we explored gravity not merely as a force pulling objects together, but as a deeper process involving the slowing of time, the compression of the spacetime fabric, and the contraction of space. This perspective invites us to look at the force of gravity in a new way and to consider how time, space, motion, and consciousness may be more deeply connected than they first appear.

If you’re interested in delving deeper into topics like this, we invite you to discover more in my book, Science Meets Vedanta, available on Amazon. Additionally, we now have a library of over 40 podcasts covering many different topics —feel free to browse through them at your convenience.

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