Some theorists have speculated that perhaps space-time itself also comes in these quantized chunks (opens in new tab), helping to bridge relativity and quantum mechanics. So photons, the particles that make up light, are like little chunks of light that come in distinct packets. Quantum mechanics rests on the fact that the tiny bits making up the universe are discrete, or quantized. Yet scientists know that their models are incomplete because relativity is still not fully reconciled with quantum mechanics (opens in new tab), which explains the properties of subatomic particles with extreme precision but does not incorporate the force of gravity.

(Image credit: Shutterstock) (opens in new tab) What scientists still don't knowĭespite its intricacy, relativity (opens in new tab) remains the best way to account for the physical phenomena we know about. But the analogy isn't entirely accurate because space-time has four dimensions, while a sheet of rubber only has two. The simplest way to understand the fabric of space-time is to imagine a curved sheet of rubber that directs how everything in the universe moves. 'Just to drive home the point, general relativity is so complex that when someone discovers a solution to the equations, they get the solution named after them and become semi-legendary in their own right.' 'Einstein made a beautiful machine, but he didn't exactly leave us a user's manual,' wrote astrophysicist Paul Sutter (opens in new tab) for Live Science's sister site,. The complex equations used to account for all of this are tricky for even physicists to work with. It's not just warps in space that the sheet represents, but also warps in time. A rubber sheet is two dimensional, while space-time is four dimensional.

Although we can discuss space-time as being similar to a sheet of rubber, the analogy eventually breaks down. Related: Ripples in Space-Time Could Reveal the Shape of Wormholes (opens in new tab)īut much of this remains difficult for most people to wrap their heads around. Motion due to gravity is actually motion along the twists and turns of space-time.Ī NASA mission called Gravity Probe B (GP-B) measured the shape (opens in new tab) of the space-time vortex around the Earth in 2011 and found that it closely accords with Einstein's predictions. These curves, in turn, constrict the ways in which everything in the universe moves, because objects have to follow paths along this warped curvature. Massive objects - like the Earth (opens in new tab), sun or you - create distortions in space-time that cause it to bend. This, too, comes from Einstein, who realized as he developed his theory of general relativity (opens in new tab) that the force of gravity (opens in new tab) was due to curves in the fabric of space-time.

Nowadays, when people talk about space-time, they often describe it as resembling a sheet of rubber.

Word for space in time