Question

How does gravity bend light?

Answer 1

1) Do you know?? The sun makes a shape around it in space. When the object wants to travel in a straight lin, but it can't, because the sun making a shape and the object follows the curves made in space. So space is shape!!! And that is how gravity works! Space tells objects how to move, object tell space what shape to be

So, when starlight comes near to the sun, it will bend. Starlight will bend!

Answer 2

Look at the picture that i attach for you :)

Answer 3

By bending space. It turns out the path that takes the least time is no longer straight.

Answer 4

what is gravity?

Answer 5

"By bending space. It turns out the path that takes the least time is no longer straight"

well, it seems that light acquires mass through its propagation in space, so gravitation just pulls energy out of light/space propagation pattern

Answer 6

not sure about that wave/matter conversion rate - does that actually depend on space or just becomes matter over time?

what is space in this regard? does that change over time?

Answer 7

Depends what you mean by "acquires mass." If you mean it in the most straightforward, common way, acquiring rest mass, then this is not true. If you mean acquires energy, it's true, but it's worth noting that, unlike the case for any other substance, for light there does not exist any frame of reference in which its energy can be interpreted as mass (resistance to acceleration).

Let me also point out that "acquires" is a suspicious verb, here, too. You seem to imply that the light could under some conditions NOT have the energy it does -- and hence could "acquire" it. This is not true. If what you mean is "acquire" in the mathematical sense, in that light has energy because it is propagating, then that is somewhat true. Actually, light "acquires" existence by proagating, in the mathematical sense. If the electric and magnetic fields were not moving, there would be no light.

Answer 8

well once you realize physical nature of light that you're able to register, you will see how does that exist besides being energy wave

Answer 9

cause as you know, wave will not exist in space by itself, there's no any conducting environment besides space itself which does not contain matter

Answer 10

so, wave has to propagate by certain rules, what are they?

Answer 11

what is light anyway, what is its nature? how does that exist, what's its physical representation, how come we can register its existense?

Answer 12

LIght is a peculiar "substance" that has zero rest mass. Its existence is only possible because of relativity, which tells us that something acquires mass in a given reference frame if it is moving, and which also tells us it is not possible to accelerate to the speed of light.

That opens up the possibility of a substance that has zero rest mass, but stil exists -- i.e. as all the consequences of mass, such as energy and momentum -- because it is moving at the speed of light. That is what light is. If the speed of light were not finite -- if Galilean relativity were true -- there would be no such thing as electromagnetic radiation, only electric fields generated by charges.

It's frequently mistakenly said that light is energy, but despite Star Wars and Star Trek, this is movie-land fantasy. Energy is a quality of substances, like electric charge, and not a substance itself. Light is a substance, not a quality. So light *has* energy, but it is not energy itself. Confusing the substance with its qualities is like saying a cat is the same as furriness.