Why can gravity bend the linear path of a photon???

Question

I thought light hass no mass,so then,why does it bend when acted upon by gravity???...Tom Science 4

Answer 1

It's not the light that bends, it's the space through which the light is travelling in a straight line that bends.

Answer 2

Because gravity bends the very space in which the photon is traveling.

Think of a photon as a small marble rolling on a tight, stretched sheet of thin rubber. It will travel in a straight line. The flat rubber sheet represents the "unbent" space.

Now imagine you put a bowling ball in the middle of the rubber sheet. The ball will sink; bending the rubber sheet near the ball.

Now the photon (marble) passing near the bowling ball will have its path deflected. This is a a simple, 2-dimensional representation of space being bent by gravity. If the marble has enough speed, it will continue beyond bowling ball. If it is too slow, it will "fall" and crash on the bowling ball.

Similarly, a photon is deflected near a huge mass and in the case of a back hole, it can fall into it, never to be seen again.

In reality this happens in three dimensions which is much more difficult for our minds to imagine, but the 2 dimensional example gives you a good idea.

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

It is just an empirical observation. Its origin is not known - at least at a quantum level - but gravity acts on everything indlucing light. It was this observation that led Einstein to the theory of General Relativity, and not the other way around as some of your answers suggest,

Answer 4

Same reason why gravity bends the path of a rifle bullet.
Mass or no mass does not matter, because mass cancels
itself on both sides of the equation mg = F = ma.

The important thing is not the mass, but velocity, which is
not infinite.

Answer 5

Because photons have mass. All mass is affected by gravity. Simple as that. Photos have no "rest mass". That means that when a photo is at rest it has no mass. Problem is there are no photons at rest. A photon travelling at the speed of light has mass.

Answer 6

long ago I had to calculate the effect of sunlight on the motion of the Echo balloon satellite as the satellite went around the earth - being eclipsed, The pressure of the light on the satellite affected the motion and this had to be accounted for and be removed to determine the effect of the atmospheric density on the orbit and hence learn something about that density

Answer 7

light is both a wave and a particle. the doors at supermarkets are examples of it acting as a wave, and being bent by gravity is an example of its particle properties, although it is almost infinitesimally small.