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Default Re: Flat Earth? Hell Yes! - 09-02-2008, 12:16 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobby-Joe View Post
Gravity bends light, right? Ask any Physicists this Snotty, they'll confirm this. So if the earth was round the light would just bend around the earth and we would have daylight even in the middle of the night.
Your ignorance is exposed here, I'm afraid. While, it is true that gravity can bend light, the effect is not great enough such that light would envelop the entire earth.

The proof of this lies with the experiment which was proposed by Einstein when he tested general relativity during an eclipse:

"If space really was distorted by gravity, then light passing through it would not travel in a straight line, but would follow a curved path. The stronger the force of gravity, the more the light would be bent. The bending would be largest for light passing very close to a very massive body, such as the Sun.

Unfortunately, the most massive objects known to astronomers at the time were also very bright. This was before black holes were seriously considered, and stars provided the strongest gravitational fields known. The Sun was particularly useful, being a star right on our doorstep. But it is impossible to see how the light from faint background stars might be bent by the Sun’s gravity, because the Sun’s light is so bright it completely swamps the light from objects beyond it.

Eddington realised the solution. Observe during a total eclipse, when the Sun’s light is blotted out for a few minutes, and you can see distant stars that appear close to the Sun in the sky. If Einstein was right, the Sun’s gravity would shift these stars to slightly different positions, compared to where they are seen in the night sky at other times of the year when the Sun far away from them. The closer the star appears to the Sun during totality, the bigger the shift would be."
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