- #1
thetexan
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I just watched a show on Einstein concerning this theory of general relativity. Around 1922 photographs of stars from an eclipse were used to measure the bending of light from those stars around the gravitational field of the sun. Those measurements were used to confirm Einstein's theory. All through the program it was stated that the predicted observed amount of bending proved his theory of space/time and the warping of space in the presense of a mass.
How so?
It seems that, at most, this proves that gravity has a predictable and measurable effect on light just like it has on an apple dropping from a tree. But how does this prove that the cause of the effect is a warping of space/time rather than the more classically accepted attracting force of Newtonian physics.
If the argument is that since photons have no mass they cannot be effected by an attracting force, therefore, the bending must be caused by something else...the bending of space/time, shouldn't it be pointed out that it has not been proven, at least to my knowledge, that photons indeed do not have mass. And, certainly, in 1922 it was not known whether photons had mass.
If photons are massless and are simply a unit of energy it should be remembered that fields of energy can be effected by other similar fields. For example, put two magnets, each with their own magnetic field, in close proximity to each other and the resulting field will be a warped, merged, combination of the two fields. Each field has some effect on the other.
If that is true, and photons are simply a small unit of an electromagnetic field, and that field can be influenced by another field, then isn't there at least one other possible explanation of the bending of starlight?
tex
How so?
It seems that, at most, this proves that gravity has a predictable and measurable effect on light just like it has on an apple dropping from a tree. But how does this prove that the cause of the effect is a warping of space/time rather than the more classically accepted attracting force of Newtonian physics.
If the argument is that since photons have no mass they cannot be effected by an attracting force, therefore, the bending must be caused by something else...the bending of space/time, shouldn't it be pointed out that it has not been proven, at least to my knowledge, that photons indeed do not have mass. And, certainly, in 1922 it was not known whether photons had mass.
If photons are massless and are simply a unit of energy it should be remembered that fields of energy can be effected by other similar fields. For example, put two magnets, each with their own magnetic field, in close proximity to each other and the resulting field will be a warped, merged, combination of the two fields. Each field has some effect on the other.
If that is true, and photons are simply a small unit of an electromagnetic field, and that field can be influenced by another field, then isn't there at least one other possible explanation of the bending of starlight?
tex