Timeline for Does Newtonian mechanics predict the bending of the course of light by objects with mass?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
12 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Aug 16 at 8:51 | comment | added | Camion | As said above, mass is irrelevant because we are talking about gravitational acceleration and not about gravitational force. Therefore the only thing that could influence the possibility of light deviation, is light speed, and it was already know that light speed was not infinite. | |
| Feb 23, 2023 at 22:38 | comment | added | twofeet | Might N have thought light had inertial mass but lacked gravitational mass? | |
| Feb 23, 2023 at 22:30 | comment | added | twofeet | I've seen conflicting claims as to whether Newton thought light was massless, as the answer above says. It's also unclear to me whether, even if Newton thought light had mass, that mass played a role in generating the Newtonian prediction that the sun bends light to some degree. | |
| May 18, 2022 at 1:51 | comment | added | JLA | I'm not sure why this is so obvious, actually, it seems like the opposite should be obvious — since $F=ma$ and $m$ for photons is zero, by Newton's first law light should should not bend. | |
| Jul 13, 2020 at 5:32 | comment | added | theorist | @N.Steinle See my answer for the relevant quote from Newton's Optiks. | |
| May 26, 2019 at 20:45 | comment | added | user87745 | I think for Newton to think that light should be bent must be convenient because he believed in the particle-nature of light. And nobody was really thinking of light-particles to be massless, they all thought of light-particles as really low-mass particles. | |
| Mar 5, 2019 at 4:48 | comment | added | Daddy Kropotkin | Is there a source for Newton's logical deduction that photons at the "sun's limb" would bend a bit? Without a source why should we believe you, honestly? And I find it odd that this was the accepted answer, since the question is about what Newtonian Mechanics predicts, rather than what Newton himself thought.... | |
| S Jul 13, 2012 at 22:33 | history | suggested | user9676 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
It seems to be unnecessary to say that it is both an answer and a question when it no longer includes a question component.
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| Jul 13, 2012 at 22:32 | vote | accept | CommunityBot | ||
| Jul 13, 2012 at 22:30 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Jul 13, 2012 at 22:33 | |||||
| Jul 12, 2012 at 1:55 | history | edited | David Z | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
remove question
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| Jul 11, 2012 at 14:31 | history | answered | Peter Martin | CC BY-SA 3.0 |