Relativity for Children

Anyone can understand Einstein

E. Alderson
4 min readAug 10, 2022

I have a ball.

The ball has mass.

Mass tells us how much matter is in the ball. Matter is stuff we can see and touch.

I have another ball! It’s bigger than the first. The bigger ball has more mass. The smaller ball has less mass.

I place the balls on a sheet.

This sheet is spacetime. It is where we live.

When the balls are placed on the sheet, they create indents. They are warping spacetime.

The warp of an object with mass is seen from another angle.

These warps in spacetime create gravity.

The ball with more mass, warps more. The ball with less mass, warps less.

The balls are also spinning on their own axis. They are rotating. They drag space as they rotate.

But the smaller ball is also moving around the bigger one. It is revolving.

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E. Alderson
E. Alderson

Written by E. Alderson

A passion for language, technology, and the unexplored universe. I aim to marry poetry and science.