If light has no mass, how does gravitational force bend light inwards

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In the case of black holes, lights are pulled into by great gravitational force exerted by the dying stars (which forms into a black hole). If light has no mass, how is light affected by gravity?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

It’s because gravity is generally very misunderstood, we still don’t *really* know all there is to know about gravity.

But for why it bends light, that’s because gravity is less a force the way other forces are. For this application specifically, the understanding of gravity as a “force” fails to tell the whole picture. Gravity is instead the curvature of spacetime itself.

If you think of light as a straight line you draw along a sheet of paper, Gravity would be bending that sheet of paper. That straight line is now curved. A black hole would be like a well in that sheet of paper that is infinitely deep, so any straight line drawn on the pieces of paper that line a black hole would all converge into the black hole.

A popular analogy for this would be to think of spacetime as a trampoline. And heavy objects as balls you place on that trampoline. It warps the surface of the trampoline, making it curved. A black hole would be a heavy object that drags down the trampoline infinitely deep.

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