Re: Curvature of Space

[Joseph Bellina <jbellina@saintmarys.edu>]

I like your last question, because that is more to the point of the 
experiment I envision, that is passing light through a very large field 
gradient.

cheers

On Thu, 19 Feb 1998, Leigh Palmer wrote:

> > A question came up in conversation for which I did not have the anwswer,
> > and being to lazy look for it I thought I would turn to phys-l for some
> > help.
> > We know that light is deviated by large masses...as I recall the first
> > observation being deviation of the angle between two stars when the sun
> > was interposed and when it was not.  One way of thinking about that is
> > that light is deviated by a strong graviational field.  The question I
> > was asked, would light also be deviated by a strong electric field, and
> > if it would has anyone ever tried to observe the effect.
>
> Think about the question "In which direction would I expect light to
> be deflected by an electric field?" I can't come up with an answer to
> that question, so I would be very surprised to find that it could be
> deflected. Nonetheless, if deflection is ever observed, I'm prepared
> emotionally to incorporate it into my *Weltanschauung*, but I believe
> the answers to your questions are "No" and "No", though the second
> answer would be difficult to verify.
>
> I'll ask a related question. Could light be deflected in an electric
> field gradient?
>
> Leigh