The Natural Linguist

Brian Greene's elegant book about the Universe offers one of the clearest explanations I've ever read of Einstein's theories. During my latest reading of the book, I was frustrated by the image of the rubber membrane and the bowling ball as an analogy for how mass curves space-time. Everyone's seen it. I understand that it's difficult to convey the idea of a four-dimensional phenomenon in a two-dimensional representation, but I find this particular analogy to be a more a hindrance than a help when I'm thinking about the idea of mass causing space time to war. It's hard to shake the two-dimensional image in my mind's eye. I always think of one of those large bowls where a coin spirals down toward the hole in the bottom. Instead, I try to cultivate in my mind the understanding that gravity pulls one toward the center of a massive object and it exerts the pull in every direction. I still can't grasp the bit about the warping of time. Enough ranting. T