as I understand it, Einstein claimed that mass causes a curvature in space-time, and this curvature is gravity.

the classic graphical depiction of this is a 3-dimensional cone-shape.

leaving aside the philosophical problems of space being a thing that can be bent (or of time being a dimension), this view of gravity does not seem to work/cannot work when viewed from the perspective of all planes at once. I realize that this is a somewhat confusing statement, and I will try to clarify.

hold out an outstretched small towel, and place a poker chip in the middle. this creates the einsteinian (?) picture of gravity (a cone shaped deformation of space). now, what happens to this deformation if you approach it from the underside, it is no longer a curvature that will attract an object, but is one that will repel an object. clearly something is amiss.

As far as I can imagine, there is no way to graphically represent the gravity of an object on more than one plane at one time. doing so would create an actual vaccuum of space in between the object causing the deformation and the outside world. ie. imagine that the cone shaped deformation existed in all planes at once, what would it look like? you would have an object surrounded on all sides by nothingness (and by nothingness, i mean completely nothing. there would not even be space surrounding it). this would clearly meet the definition of a black hole. but, it would also mean that any object that produced a gravitational effect would be a black hole.

thoughts.