Watch it around 2:00 minutes. https://youtu.be/gcvq1DAM-DE
Do objects move closer to Earth because they experience time at different rates, really? Does it make sense? The video also represents the object kind of rotating, when in reality they would just fall straight to Earth, right? What is the best way to explain gravity in layman’s terms? In this sense, the rubber sheet analogy makes much more sense…
Edit: trying to explain more what’s in the video… the uploader argues that objects move closer to Earth because they experience time differently, so they kind of rotate. It’s difficult to explain more because most of my problems with the video are with the graphical representations and not so much with what’s being said.
Edit 2: changed the title of the question as well.
Best Answer
There is much to dislike about the popularized video, but its basic idea isn’t far from the truth. If you work through the equations of weak-field GR, you will find that ${{g}_{00}}$, which measures the rate of passage of proper time (i.e., aging) along a world-line relative to coordinate time, can be identified with $1+2\Phi $, where $\Phi $ is Newton’s gravitational potential. The geodesic equation predicts the same deflection of trajectories as Newton’s equation of gravitational force.
How would a change in the passage of time cause deflection? It’s hard to understand for a point particle, and that’s why the video showed a dumbbell. There is an analogous problem in QM about the deflection of a wave packet moving through a potential gradient. It will have wave-fronts of constant phase orthogonal to the direction of motion. The potential affects the rate of phase change, so if the left side of the packet undergoes more rapid phase change than the right side, the trajectory will veer left.