Space Forum / Astronomy / March 2008

I never saw that happen, BEERTbrain!  lmao!

Saul Levy

You mean going away form gravity or headed towards gravity is what +/-
binds light as convex/concave or concave/convex, depending on where
you're viewing this from.  Sounds great, I like it.
. - Brad Guth

This was considered in the early 20th century. For that to happen a
mass moving at a velocity would have to make a 'dent in space-time
continuum just like gravity does. This effect would react to the
stationary gravity well formed by the earth to form a complex shape.
But at 180 degrees (just up and down) the vector would simply
subtract. It may be that a tunnel effect would exist (very slight at
elevator velocities) where light would appear to bend away from the
center. This could produce a convex and concave bending of light.  It
would be overlaid onto simpler things like the doppler shift. The
problem is detection. We measure doppler shift easily because its
effect would be much larger.

Maybe too easily?

The other extension of this space-time dent would be that as something
goes faster the 'effect' would increase until at the speed of light it
would stop the elevator from going any faster. This is exactly what is
seen in particles and decay times in particle accelerators where the
mass of, say electrons, achieve the 'mass' of a basketball. This
'mass' is not like a stationary gravity well but affects the electron
just like a gravity well in the direction of travel. That is, it
prevents it from travelling any faster. So that appears to track
right. Still, it smacks too much of the earlier theory in physics
about the speed of light and something called the "ether". That theory
stated that the speed of light was fixed the same way that the speed
of sound is fixed in air or water or rock, that is, by a transmitting
medium. The "medium" for the speed of light was eventually refuted.
But the explanations sound alike enough to really confuse alot of
people. And it has not been supported by independent observation so it
hasn't been talked about too much except as an idea.

Darrell Lakin
3174 South Shore Drive
Smithfield, VA 23430