wendy wrote:light does not bend in space. It goes straight ahead. Moreover, space does not 'bend'.
However, the curvature of space near a massive object is graded to produce smaller (ie more to -inf) curvature near the massive object. The effect of this is that the circumference of the circle, divided into two parts, gives a smaller angle towards the massive object, and a straight line tends to deflect towards the massive object, relative to the angles.
Therefore, light appears to bend, relative to the overlying euclidean metric.
PaperNuke wrote:Then why is the space curved around massive objects in space?
Nick wrote:Wow.
Asymptote wrote:PaperNuke wrote:Then why is the space curved around massive objects in space?
hat was Einstein's great discovery: that the presence of mass causes curvature in space. Actually, I haven't heard any really good explanations for why this should happen, but I think it's just a property of the structure of space and time.
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