Curved space-time?

From: Eric Mutta (anon21h_at_yahoo.co.uk)
Date: 02/19/05 

Date: 19 Feb 2005 11:51:29 -0800

Hi All,

Though I am a computer programmer by profession, I do occassionally
wander into physics and have a general interest in it. Experience wise,
I'm familiar with elementary physics but I never got into the heavy
stuff, which brings me to my question.

I keep hearing about curved space-time in a variety of articles but
can't seem to get my head around the notion space being curve-able and
of time and space being fusable.

First off, when I think of space I think of the absence of matter to a
given degree. Vacuo are at one extreme being completely empty space,
while dense solids are at the other extreme with very little space in
them.

Then when I think of time, I think of a man-made logical device used
for measuring the "distance" between the occurrence of two events of
interest. (Time seems to be one of those things you can't define easily
without using the word "time" itself, though I am aware of the
definition of a second in terms of transitions of state in the
cesium-133 isotope).

Now then, how do you fuse/combine space (the general absence of matter)
and time (a logical device for measuring)? Or is this fusing a purely
mathematical concept?

Furthermore, how can space curve? That sounds like taking "nothingness"
and giving it shape which doesn't seem to compute in my mind. OK,
suppose that it could curve and we treat it as a hypothetical fourth
state of matter coming after the gaseous state. Wouldn't it need to be
contained in something and hence take on the curved shape of that
something (much like a liquid in a container)? Or looking at it another
way, how would curved space maintain its structure?

I believe these questions should be answerable in the same language as
they were posed: English. So if someone in-the-know can clue me in on
these issues without having to resort to (abstract) mathematics, I'd be
really grateful. (If some mathematical treatment is necessary, then I'd
prefer to be told both the logic being used and the mathematics
expressing that logic numerically).

Cheers,
Eric.

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