Junk science: Any science where the conclusion is assumed before the hypothesis is even made based on non-scientific reasoning, such as for political
or religious reasons.
Originally posted by James the Lesser
Hey JJ thanks for backing the science community!
hehe Of that community I am a member, albeit in the medical field.
I like the explanation of the light not being effected byt the space it is in. But this leads to the question of if nothing is faster then light then
uh, how to put it so it is understandable...
Ok, I think I know. Light photon moving east, gravity affects the space it is in and pulls it north. But how is the gravity able to affect the
light? Imagine a car going mach 2, you are going to try and effect it by kicking it, only problem is you can't catch it for it is faster then you.
So is gravity "faster" then light? But they say nothing can be faster then light....
Why I love science, so many questions, so few answers, and when you do get an answer it brings about dozens of questions.
Well, soon the hypothesis of gravity waves will be put to the test. If it turns out to be true, then gravity would travel at the speed of light, too.
I think you're looking at gravity incorrectly, though. It is a constant force exerted by a mass. As a result, it would be like a car going mach 2 as
you try to kick it. More like that car going mach 2 as it hits a lake. Those models of space where it is a flat plane and objects of mass cause
dimples in that plane make the concept a bit easier to understand. You have a mass, and around it is a constant attractive force that gradually loses
strength the further from the object you get. A photon, or light particle, travels on that plane, hugging the surface. As it comes to a planet, or
even a star, the dimple in space is relativly small and doesn't have much opportunity to change the course of that particle. If you have a shallow
bowl and throw a marble into it off center as a sufficent enough speed, that marble will pop out on the other side just barely traveling in a
different direction. However, if you were to do the same with a pool, by the time the marble exited the pool, it's path would be severly altered.
A black hole is suspected to create a massive dimple in space. As light comes to it, far, far away the gravity begins to effect it. It doesn't reach
out to grab the light, the light meets the gravity. It was always there while that mass existed. There is a lot of time for the gravity to begin to
alter that photon's path towards its center. If the light passes the event horizon, or point of no return, it will be sucked into the black hole. If
it does not, it will come out on a very different trajectory than it had before. Were you to be looking from the other side of the black hole, and
that photon came from a star, it would appear as though that star were in a totally different position in the sky than it really is.
So next time you're looking up at the night sky, spying a star, you may not even be looking remotely in the direction that star lies.
Now what I want to know is, how does that photon maintain its speed
after these forces have effected it. If the speed of light is a constant in
a vaccum, it may slow down passing through an atmosphere or gravity well, but immediately speeds back up as soon as it's out.