I went down the stairs to the bar and tucked myself in a small curved space that commanded a view of the dance floor.

It is frequently said that geodesics are "straight lines in curved space".

For example, the surface of the earth is a two-dimensional curved space.

"There are no straight lines in curved space," Stella adds.

But change the parameters to curved space and this is no longer a certainty.

Objects try to follow the nearest thing to a straight line in this curved space.

One has to specify what class of possible curved spaces should be included in the sum over histories.

"Ah, no, people like the idea of a flat universe because they find negatively curved space difficult to deal with."

A very familiar example of a curved space is the surface of a sphere.

Geodesic designs can be used to form any curved, enclosed space.