15th March 2006, 1:38 PM
The object itself may not bend, but the water does in fact literally bend the light. Gravity does as well.
You percieve it bending because the light itself IS bending. How would you percieve it as bending if it didn't change course to enter your eyes?
I did not state the object itself literally bends. I said the light bends, and it does. We can't percieve it bending unless that happens.
Light that enters a black hole, under the current understanding, simply never escapes, but to say it is actually "destroyed" is inaccurate. It becomes part of the singularity and is compressed into the infinitely dense but zero size mass.
A black hole bends SOME light. Any light that does not pass through the horizon either has it's course altered or is forced to orbit perpetually (though the latter is very rare).
You percieve it bending because the light itself IS bending. How would you percieve it as bending if it didn't change course to enter your eyes?
I did not state the object itself literally bends. I said the light bends, and it does. We can't percieve it bending unless that happens.
Light that enters a black hole, under the current understanding, simply never escapes, but to say it is actually "destroyed" is inaccurate. It becomes part of the singularity and is compressed into the infinitely dense but zero size mass.
A black hole bends SOME light. Any light that does not pass through the horizon either has it's course altered or is forced to orbit perpetually (though the latter is very rare).
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)