Purple dosn't beleve in relativity

Just a few questions, let's say that all of the earth's mass was collected into 5 miles of crust so that on the surface, no change in vector or strength of gravity could be felt. If you dug down 5 miles and broke though, wouldn't you fall?But if you threw a ring onto a foam mattress and dropped a marble in the center, wouldn't it run towards the depression close to the ring?Also I have read that if you travel at relativistic speeds (I forget if it is while you are undergoing acceleration or not, maybe someone can help me out), that you would be unable to see stars if you looked in any direction perpendicular to the direction you are traveling. You could however see stars in the front and back, and in fact, would be seeing stars there (for example at 30 degrees off center) instead of to your side. Does this have to do with the "vector of impact" that photons arriving from your side appear to have?Also, if time dilation can be measured after synchronized watches are returned to the same inertial frame, why can't length contraction be measured... or can it? Or is time dilation "real" and length contraction only a distortion?Also, am I even asking the right questions or am I way off the mark?This message has been edited by teratogenome, 12-13-2004 04:34 AM

Sylas, the real reason I asked that question was because I was trying to use the earth's matter shell as sort of an analogy for the matter of the visible universe. If Earth was close to the center of this visible universe, could the greater amounts of red shift from distant galaxies be caused by the type of time dilation/compression you just mentioned? Could they in fact be expanding more slowly but because of their time being compressed in relation to us, APPEAR to be moving away faster?The only other thing I can think of is some sort of dark matter crap. Even that would preclude a big bang unless it's repulsive force (per "mass" or "amount" ) diminishes over distance at a different rate than gravity and thereby overcomes it when normal matter becomes significantly diffused. Even then I don't see how it could come to be incorporated into the initial big bang material.

Well, if you still experience time dilation at the center of a gravity well but no longer experience the gravitational effects, could it be possible for us to be (or have been during a big bang, for example) at the center of a very large gravity well and be experiencing time dilation effects? Is there any way for us to calculate what the time dilation might approach if we are very near the middle of a very massive part (or the entire) universe?Would that explain why bodies farther away from us appear to be accelerating outwardly? The farther out they are, the more distant they might be from the center of the universe's gravity, and therefore their time would be more compressed in relation to ours.Sylas, regarding the expansion of space, how could the force of empty space be measured on anything? How does a virtual particle spring into existence without ceasing to be virtual? Exactly how much mass per cubic meter does it take before gravity overcomes the force of nothing that is pushing it apart, and begins to coalesce? Wouldn't it interfere with star formation?