yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Why do planets orbit? (With Dan Burns)


less than 1m read
·Nov 10, 2024

The explanation for gravity is that matter bends space.

And so, you put mass in a place in space; it warps SpaceTime. Objects are not feeling a force of gravity; they're just following the natural curvature.

Um, and so you put matter and it warps SpaceTime. If I have another object, it also warps SpaceTime. They feel that, and they're attracted to each other.

And so that's Einstein's picture of gravity: objects warp SpaceTime, feel that curvature, and move accordingly.

You have more mass; it's going to bend SpaceTime more. And so if you have objects here, they are going to respond to that, right?

And so you put something there; now it's attracted. Well, instead of just letting go of one, what if I give it a sideways push?

Now it orbits. Now it's losing energy, which wouldn't happen in the solar system, right? Not noticeably.

There's some perturbations from other planets and things, but this one does lose energy and spirals in different directions.

But there was a preferred direction that distant formed from; it had a slight preference one way versus another.

And things going the opposite way got eliminated.

When it's all said and done, everything's going the same way.

More Articles

View All
180° Kathmandu, City of Temples | National Geographic
Carved into the foothills of some of the world’s highest peaks, the Kathmandu Valley has been a unique witness to the development of Buddhism and Hinduism. The valley is dotted by more than a hundred sacred spots: temples, stupas, and monasteries, many sh…
What is NOT Random?
What will happen tomorrow is not random. In other words, it’s at least somewhat predictable. I mean, not entirely to be sure, but some things will happen for certain, and other things definitely won’t. For example, the sun will rise, water will still free…
Farming for the Planet | Podcast | Overheard at National Geographic
[Music] I’m going to tell you about this place that 10 years ago didn’t even exist. And what created this wasn’t brilliance; it was freedom to allow nature to show us a better way. That’s exactly how my wife Molly and I rebuilt this whole farm over the la…
The Physics Of Basketball | StarTalk
We’re exploring the physics of basketball, featuring my interview with NBA All-Star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Check it out. A rebound—in basketball, you have to get a sense of how the thing is going to bounce before the thing makes that bounce so that you can…
Uncle Tom's Cabin part 2
So Becca and I have been talking about Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which is this book from the 1850s that Abraham Lincoln actually said started the Civil War. So how did this book start a war? In this video, we’ll tell you a little bit more about the plot. Um, bu…
Animal communication
Let’s talk a little bit about animal communication. In general, communication is one party giving information to another party somehow. It doesn’t even have to be one to one; it could be one person giving or one animal—if we’re talking about animal commun…