how does a blackhole?

Question

how does a blackhole suck in even light? i mean, light has no mass, no matter, it's just energy so how can it be affected by gravity? and how does gravity work too?

Answer 1

Ah, that's the thing - gravity doesn't just pull stuff with mass. Gravity pulls all energy. It's just that light is so fast that you don't normally notice it being bent by gravity, even though it is, in fact, being bent.

The current idea on how gravity works is called "general relativity", which essentially states that energy, pressure, and mass cause spacetime to curve. Thus, things in the proximity of a mass accelerate towards it in spacetime.

I use "spacetime" because that's important - space and time are thought to be two different aspects of the same thing, called "spacetime".

The common visual used to demonstrate this concept is a bowling ball on a trampoline - you place the bowling ball (representing mass) on the trampoline (representing spacetime), and the trampoline bends downward with the ball. Anything placed on the trampoline near the ball will roll down towards it.

Good books to read are "The Fabric of the Cosmos" by brian greene and "A Brief History of Time" by stephen hawking. They explain this sort of thing in plain language, and in more detail than is easy to go into in an answer on yahoo answers.

Answer 2

well the thing is though that matter is made of energy,photons do have mass.all energy has mass in some way, even neutrinos.the way a black hole pulls stuff in is because it has an infinite amount of gravitational pull and light doesnt have an infinite amount of enregy to escape.but even things with less mass then black holes can bend light.if u had a memory foam matress and put a bowling ball on it,there would be a dip right? now throw a marble as fast as u can in a straight line around that dip. ul see that even though the marble started out straight,its going in a different direction then how u aimed it. thats how an object such as a planet (the ball) bends spacetime (the matress) so the marble would be the beam of light. i have more still tho.In physics, gravitation or gravity is the tendency of objects with mass to accelerate toward each other. Gravitation is one of the four fundamental interactions in nature, the other three being the electromagnetic force, the weak nuclear force, and the strong nuclear force. Gravitation is the weakest of these interactions, but acts over great distances and is always attractive. In classical mechanics, gravitation arises out of the force of gravity (which is often used as a synonym for gravitation). In general relativity, gravitation arises out of spacetime being curved by the presence of mass, and is not a force. In quantum gravity theories, either the graviton is the postulated carrier of the gravitational force[1], or time-space itself is envisioned as discrete in nature, or both.

The gravitational attraction of the Earth endows objects with weight and causes them to fall to the ground when dropped (the earth also moves toward the object, but this is so small the effects are negligible at best ). Moreover, gravitation is the reason for the very existence of the earth, the sun and other celestial bodies; without it matter would not have coalesced into these bodies and life as we know it would not exist. Gravitation is also responsible for keeping the earth and the other planets in their orbits around the sun, the moon in its orbit around the earth, for the formation of tides, and for various other natural phenomena that we observe

Answer 3

Light has no restmass but a particle of light,a photon,has a relativistic mass of hf/c*c ,where h is the Planck's constant,c is light speed and f is frequency of light.Light has dual nature,a mystrey not yet solved.Hence due to quantum mechanics and relativity,light has particle nature as well as wave nature and has mass (on account of its motion) respectively.Hence light gets sucked in a blackhole i.e. it is affected by gravity.Classically its difficult to explain the bending of light by gravity.It all deals with modern physics.
Gravity theory given by Einstein says that actually gravity is due to the curvature of 4 d space time and the path the earth follows around the sun is nothing but the curves and countours produced by the sun.Curvature of space time means gravity and gravity means curvature of space time.No more explanation is available in Einsteins theory which is the most accurate.The curvature of spacetime is produced by a mass around itself.Newton's theory explains the motions of planets but it fails in strong gravitational feilds where Einsteins theory passed.

Answer 4

A black hole is a concentration of mass whose gravitational field is so strong that nothing can escape. As an object moves closer to a black hole, the energy required for it to escape continues to increase until it becomes infinite at the event horizon, the surface beyond which escape is impossible. Inside the event horizon, the geometry of spacetime is distorted in a way that makes moving closer to the central singularity inevitable no matter how the infalling object moves.

Answer 5

A black hole doesn't suck in light. Light that passes is attracted to the mass of the black hole. Matter and energy are really the same thing (remember Einstein's E=MC^2?). In a black hole, the singularity is regressing in space-time at a speed equal to the speed of light. Attracted photons (light) enter the horizon of the black hole and don't escape the black hole as they can never reach it (it's going at the same speed so they never reach it.).

Gravity is manifested as particles too! Gravitons are particles of gravity

Answer 6

Light does interact with gravity. It is the gravity of the black hole that "sucks" the light in. Once a light wave crosses the event horizon of a black hole, the escape velocity required to break free of the gravitational grip exceeds 186,000 miles per second. What happens to the light after that is anybody's guess.

Answer 7

A photon HAS mass & responds to magnetic fields INCLUDING gravity. In the norms we know of, gravity isn't enough to deflect light, but in case of a black hole, it damn sure is more than enough.

Out of the context: ever wondered what would happen to you if you were to get sucked through the eye of a needle?

Answer 8

Gravety tends to "bend" in space. Like grabbing a rubber sheet, pulling it tight at the corners, then putting a large steel ball on it. Light is traveling a straight path around space that's curved. A black hole is enough gravety in one place so that space curves in on itself, so any light that comes too close gets trapped. If you were standing on a photon, you'd see yourself traveling in a straight path, but from outside, it "appears" curved because the light is following a curved space.

Answer 9

light is a tricky thing, its kinda half energy half matter, so a black hole can suck it in.