Gravity, light and time hurt my brain
gravity distorts space-time (according to Einstein's theory) and gravity bends light. In
another vid i was told the speed of light is constant. Bear with me now.
To me this presented the following problem:
Speed is distance divided by time. So given that the speed of light is constant, does that mean
that when light travels through a distortion (where space-time is dense) does it:
A. adjust it's speed within the distortion effectively slowing down outside of the distortion.
or does it
B. not adjust it's speed withing the distortion and increase in speed within the distortion
Yes, this sounds boring and dull (if you haven't stopped reading yet) but i'm the type of
person who can be bothered by this for days (luckily i think i solved it in one day, but still)
at end. The first thing that messed me up was my orientation on the definition of 'constant'.
Because wether the speed of light is constant would then depend on wether it is seen from
outside the distortion or or outside space-time itself (and thus from outside the universe
itself).
Are you still with me?
Now, after much, much agany i decided to set aside my agony of how to perceive 'constant' and
decided to move on to if-then-else reasoning.
If A is true, space-time distortion would be VISIBLE, because the lightwaves' frequencies would
change and be perceived as a different color a dense distortion would increase the light wave
frequency (making it turn red) and a whatever-the-opposite-of-dense-is distortion would
decrease the frequency making it blue.
Long story short, gravity would not only BEND light, but also change it's colour! Which it does
not.
B being true would lead to other problems. Assuming 'constant' is within the space-time fabric,
constont would be distorted along with space time, which means that if light goes through a
distortion at a speed which is considered constant outside of the universe, it would not be
constant within it, making the speed of light dependant on the distortion it is traveling
through. So measureing the age and distance of bodys in the universe would be impossible unless
these distortions were measurable, which they are not (for as far as i know, which is not far
at all).
So after HOURS of brain pain it hit me. I needlesly tortured myself by assuming light existing
next space-time rather than within it. This would mean that statement A would be partially true
except for the fact that the frequency of lightwaves is not changed!.
So after a good 6 hours of mental machosism i could almost have a peace of mind. Almost..
because the documentary ended with a scientist clashing protons in an attempt to create a
graviton. His proof of it working is the loss of energy during these clashes. Energy and matter
cannot be broken or dissapeared, do the loss of energy is accounted by the creation of possibly
a graviton. But gravitons cannot be seen for the same reason that gravity cannot be seen. And
then guy end by saying that perhaps gravitons exist in another dimension (which wouldn't be so
weird). But to me that like a saying that hes hoping to have made a 3 dimensional object into a
4rth dimensional object.
I just know i'm gonna loose sleep overthis..
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