Gravitational Waves Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Davies & Gribbin (1992: 181-2):

A massive object like the Sun produces a warping of spacetime in its vicinity. As the Sun moves, the space warp and time warp move with it. In the depths of the Universe, other objects, some much more massive than the Sun, carry their own space and time warps. If two objects collide, their space and time warps are disrupted, and can release ripples into the surrounding Universe. These ripples are gravitational waves. …

It is not only the collision of objects that produces gravitational waves. In theory, most moving masses should emit some gravitational radiation. Common sources in the Universe might include exploding or collapsing stars, the orbital motion of binary stars or the wiggling of a cosmic string. The radiation that is released in such processes travels at the speed of light, and could in principle reach us from the edges of the observable Universe.

 

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of the General Theory of Relativity, gravitational waves are distortions in the curvature of space-time that propagate at the speed of light. 

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory, the curvature of space-time is the curvature of the geodesic trajectory of a body moving through space that is relatively contracted in the direction of matter. 

In this view, gravitational waves are the propagation of alternating relative contractions and expansions of space intervals, and conversely, of alternating relative expansions and contractions of time intervals.