"John" wrote in message ...

My question is what is space-time doing in the vicinity of a
stationary apple at the time I let go such that it falls towards the
earth since there are no other forces acting on it now? Maybe the
answer is mathematical but an explanation in layman's terms would be
appreciated.

Remember that it is spaceTIME that is curved by matter and energy.

Although the apple is not moving through space when you let it go
it is moving through time (in the sense that time passes for it).

Spacetime is curved in such a way that the apple's moving
through time causes it to move through space (relative
to a coordinate system in which it was originally stationary).

Martin Hogbin