What would happen to light passing through a narrow space between the event horizons of two equal-mass black holes? Would it deviate or follow a straight path?
Answer
What would happen to light passing through a narrow space between the event horizons of two equal-mass black holes? Would it deviate or follow a straight path?
Like iharob and JohnnyMo1 said, the light goes straight. But something else happens to it. See this screenshot of Irwin Shapiro's seminal paper:
See where he said the speed of light depends on gravitational potential? The light goes straight, but it also goes slower. Also see Professor Ned Wright's Deflection and Delay of Light, where you can read this: "In a very real sense, the delay experienced by light passing a massive object is responsible for the deflection of the light".
Einstein said much the same here: "the curvature of light rays occurs only in spaces where the speed of light is spatially variable". Also see Baez. It's like light veers, like a car veers when it encounters mud at the side of the road. However when light passes between two massive objects, it isn't slowed down more on one side than the other, so the net deflection is zero.
No comments:
Post a Comment