How do black holes “consume” light?

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How do black holes “consume” light?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Imagine a trampoline thats completely flat. If you put something really heavy in the middle, like a basketball then draw a straight line from the edge of the trampoline to another edge (imagine any line other than the diameter just to make this explanation make sense) notice how the line bends slightly towards the heavy thing in the middle. This is called gravitational lensing.

Now- in the case of a black hole, instead of a basketball, its now a bowling ball. Its so heavy that any “straight line” you draw from edge to edge just ends up leading to the bowling ball in the middle, this is how black holes or anything with gravity “sucks up” anything. As you probably noticed, the black hole doesnt suck anything, everything just goes forward and all the black hole does is change WHERE this forward is. Using the same example, light doesn’t need to interact with anything, the literal curvature of space is bent in a way that makes its forward direction, towards the black hole. Its not attracted to the black hole in any way, in the same way that straight line you drew on the trampoline is in no way attracted to the bowling ball.

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