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4 months ago in Quantum Gravity By Aniketh

If gravity isn’t a force in general relativity, how do i feel it?

Einstein said gravity isn't a force—it's spacetime curvature. But when I step on a scale, something is definitely pushing back. What am I actually feeling?

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By Akash Answered 2 months ago

You're feeling the floor preventing you from following your natural path through curved spacetime. In GR, an inertial frame is one in free fall like an astronaut in orbit, feeling weightless. You on the ground are not inertial; the Earth's surface is constantly accelerating you upward relative to your natural geodesic. That acceleration is what you feel as weight. Gravity isn't the force; the floor pushing is. Gravity is the curvature that makes that push necessary.

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