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→Bending of light in Newtonian gravity
All right, can someone show me exactly how light is bent by gravity in Newtonian gravity? Photons have zero mass, so, according to Newtonian gravity, they should not feel gravity. [[User:AndyFrankinson|AndyFrankinson]] 20:56, 25 June 2012 (EDT)
All right, can someone show me exactly how light is bent by gravity in Newtonian gravity? Photons have zero mass, so, according to Newtonian gravity, they should not feel gravity. [[User:AndyFrankinson|AndyFrankinson]] 20:56, 25 June 2012 (EDT)
:*Newton's Corpuscular theory of light didn't state that the mass of the photons is zero. It was just obvious that it is very tiny
:*For the actual calculation, the mass of the photon cancels out
:*[[Johann Georg von Soldner]] did the calculations in 1801 - Newton's theroy was still going strong, then. ([http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Ueber_die_Ablenkung_eines_Lichtstrals_von_seiner_geradlinigen_Bewegung Über die Ablenkung eines Lichtstrals von seiner geradlinigen Bewegung] English: ''On the Deflection of a Light Ray from its Rectilinear Motion''). The predicted effect was to tiny to be observed accurately in his time
:*Newton's corpuscular theory became unpopular since the 1820s, so this line of thought wasn't followed up.
:*Here is a modern re-calculation [http://arxiv.org/abs/0903.1031v6 Bending of light: A classical analysis]
:[[User:AugustO|AugustO]] 02:45, 26 June 2012 (EDT)