The Unbended Curved Bar Space Slugout Thread

Buz, would it be helpful to know that the curvature of spacetime has been measured directly by satellites orbiting the Earth?
This involved no measurements of light, e.t.c. It really was just a measurement of spacetime. So the curvature of spacetime is an empirical fact. Even ignoring GR, we know spacetime is curved.

It is the curvature itself. Spacetime has curvature as a property.The full on answer is that the concept of distance itself changes across the universe and it is this "change in the definition of distance" that causes curvature.

Their coupling to the stress energy of matter. I don't know how much use that is but it's the answer. Let's be realistic and not suggest that all this unintuitive stuff from theoretical physics was just be made up to be confusing or semi-mystical. I mean it would be bone stupid if anybody stayed in the subject if it was so obviously a pile of nonsense.
Rather one should take the more realistic view that physics, like most academic subjects, has been progressing over the few hundred years and because of this its terminology is largely disconnected from standard English. Also it has discovered genuinely new things and since those things were not known before there is no way to imagine them in pre-existing mental frameworks.Let us reduce this debate significantly, by providing an answer to this question:
If General Relativity is incorrect and so fatally incorrect as you imply, why does it match experiment perfectly?Your own answer to this question would help in addressing your objections.

Is it not more plausible that I simply misunderstood it or that you misunderstood me? I must say this is a very "rude" claim to make. Okay, the real answer. Although it will not be much use.
The diffeomorphism invariance of spacetime is the property that allows it to curve. This provides a conserved current, the Stress-Energy tensor which matter can then couple to. This allows matter to directly influence the Ricci curvature of spacetime.
If this does not satisfy you then it's the fact that spacetime is pseudo-Riemannian.Or rather the question has a much simpler answer given already. Which is that it can curve because it can curve. There is no need for me to evade. Spacetime's curvature has been measured, that is a simple fact. There is no need to understand curvature in terms of other underlying properties, it is a property itself.Edited by Son Goku, : Addition.