Another Failure of General Relativity – Where’s The Bending Light?

Dr. Edward Dowdye is a laser optics engineer and former NASA physicist. In this presentation, Dr. Dowdye points out that General Relativity predicts we should see light being “bent” around objects in space, yet we don’t. Instead, we only see light being bent when it passes through fields of plasma. It starts a little slow, but by the time you get half-way through you’ll get the picture of what Dr. Dowdye is trying to explain.

Dr. Dowdye never mentions this in his lecture, but it is a known fact that when light rays pass through certain types of plasma, they can be “bent” because the refractive index of the plasma increases with the strength of the electric field. This change in the refractive index of a plasma is called “self-focusing.” Self-focusing in a plasma can occur through thermal, relativistic and ponderomotive effects. This effect is capable of explaining why light is distorted as it passes close to the Sun. It’s not because of the “gravitational gradient” that Dowdye suspects.

Since plasma self-focusing is a known effect of light passing through a plasma, any explanation of light refraction through a plasma must include these effects. In all General Relativity papers that attempt to explain why we observe refraction of light very near to the Sun, they fail to account for self-focusing effects.

a reply to: AnarchoCapitalist

S&F. I have to watch the video later, got stuff to do outside with the mosquitoes.

a reply to: AnarchoCapitalist

Very intriguing, S+F the implication is that the general relativity was a good model but obviously neither complete nore correct, still a good approximation for it's time and as a stepping stone to more accurate models it is still worthy of it's place in history though quantum theory is more accurate and a lot more convoluted.

a reply to: AnarchoCapitalist

It is my understanding the bending of light by large gravity wells is a well established phenomena.


link 1

link 2


There are many other examples. Apparently the first "proof" of light bending due to gravity was back in 1919. I am relatively sure that if there were instances of light NOT bending when it should have there would have been a significant outcry.

Therefore, in my opinion, this OP is hokum. (retracted)

Apparently I pulled that trigger a bit too soon. I left here and began looking into the good Dr. and his ideas and find that perhaps he may, indeed, have something.

If so, this will have far reaching effects in the world of physics.

Well done, OP for bringing this to the table. I will continue looking into this, but at the very least it is thought provoking.

I got into a "discussion" about this very subject in a past post. I can bend light easily, it's a doddle. just point said laser at a mirror or prism, heh presto bent light. Lol. Now what does anyone think is happening when light passes through plasma? Oops. As the same as light refracted by a mirror or prism the light photons are being refracted by the charged particles. As I said in other posts the "theory of relativity" is just that a theory, it is not fact. Now someone responded by saying that the theory is 99% proved. As I replied absolutely no-one can say any percentage is true. It is only relevant till other information supercedes the information that makes up the theory. Just to short cut the nay sayers I am not disparaging the people who have put work into the theory or the people trying to prove its authenticity. A theory is only a theory (put forward with the available known facts) it is NOT a fact no matter how high the percentage anyone quotes as being true. As always it's the small unknown bit that comes out of no-where to bite you in the a**.

a reply to: AnarchoCapitalist

Dr. Edward Dowdye is an independent researcher and is Founder of Pure Classical Physics Research where he focuses in depth on the Truth and the Profound Fundamentals and Pure Laws of Nature, all first set in motion by the Devine (sic)Creator, the Almighty Lord God. Dr. Dowdye is a recognized and leading expert on the theories of both General and Special Relativity, Electromagnetism and Gravitation.

Dr. Dowdye is also active and involved in the spiritual as well as the physical aspect. He frequently gives presentations for midweek Bible study, schools and churches. He is a member of Reid Temple A. M. E. Church in Glenn Dale, Maryland, formerly a member of Florida Avenue Baptist Church located in Washington, DC, his city of birth.

A religious crank with a bachelor's degree in physics and a doctorate in spectroscopy who mounts a challenge to relativity.

And before you ask, no, I'm not going to waste my time trying to prove his 'science' wrong.

That's an easy question. There is bent light inside the event horizon of a black hole.

a reply to: AnarchoCapitalist

And here (you couldn't make this stuff up) is the good Dr Dowdye himself:

What this says in a NUTSHELL is that both the scientists and the so-call know-it-all physicists who lack knowledge of GOD and the Bible are just as guilty as the Bible believers and the Creationists for their lack of knowledge of SCIENCE. I believe that Einstein is saying that it goes both ways. Source

He then goes on to bash antiscientific Christians too, so I don't think he's winning many votes for popularity these days.

For anyone who's interested, here's the good doctor's web site: Science in the Bible

Nice layout and colour scheme, no? Even if his light is looking a bit tired...

a reply to: Astyanax

I find it interesting that you spend time looking into Dr. Dowdye's religious beliefs, two posts on it in fact, and ignore the science he is presenting. At the same time, you say

And before you ask, no, I'm not going to waste my time trying to prove his 'science' wrong."

But surely that's the point, isn't it? The OP talks about the science and you refuse to think about it, because of the doctor's beliefs in a different area. You're not proposing that a person's religious beliefs are an infallible sign of the truth of his scientific statements, are you? Or, perhaps you are claiming that the scientific statements of a religious person are worthless? That position has been proved wrong in hundreds of cases throughout history, but you believe it applies in this case? What makes you so sure?

Would you supply us with a broad outline of why his science is wrong? Not a full proof, but perhaps a couple of points he's probably mistaken about?

Experiments have been conducted concerning the influence of a star's gravity on light. That has the advantage of providing enough mass to make the effect visible, but as AnarchCapitalist points out, what about the self focusing effect? Can you think of another way to test it?

originally posted by: crayzeed
...As I said in other posts the "theory of relativity" is just that a theory, it is not fact.

I know this is off-topic a bit, but if this were an evolution thread, you would get your chestnuts roasted good. But since it isn't, you might get away with this little nugget of truth.

Carry on.

a reply to: AnarchoCapitalist

Does Edward's theory makes predictions which could be verifiable?

a reply to: AnarchoCapitalist

basically he is saying that the Light waves,,candle's flame, flickers, because of Gravity,
interacting with the plasma at the edge's of the flicker,,giving an allusion of bending.

in my opinion.

what sort of misinterpretation is this guy performing

light ALWAYS travels a straight line, but....
in fact it is space which is distorted by gravitation creating this effect.
so a beam of light travels a straight line in a curved environment.

its a matter of perspective
cause earth, for example, is traveling a straight line in a warped space too, if you look at it from
the relativistic viewpoint.

the effect can be seen with the sun (while having a total lunar eclipse) and can indeed be explained by plasma in this environment.

but you cannot discuss this away with pictures where you can see gravitational lensing, like in those famous ultra deep field pictures made by hubble.
these bubbles would require plasma in such high ammounts that you would see it.

search images for hubbles ultra deep field and you see it

I saw some of that. I wonder how he passed his physics undergrad. Bad logic.

a reply to: Astyanax

Why dont you try to attack even one of the tenants of his theory besides pure ad hominem. Should take up even less of your time.

If light wasn't bent by mass then we wouldn't observe the gravitational lensing effect around many galaxies and we wouldn't be able to calculate the mass of said galaxies, nor would we know that dark matter exists because we'd have no way to infer its existence via measuring the amount of mass (and apparent lack of visible mass) in galaxies.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

Yes well the idea is that the medium that allows gravity (the medium that gets curved by mass) is completely in and of every nook and cranny of possible space in the universe, and so the medium that allows EM radiation; where else can that medium be but somehow and someway coupled to the gravity medium; so the idea is that if the gravity medium is curved, the light medium is also curved.


Something completely unrelated I just thought about when viewing this;

themetapicture.com...

If there were absolutely perfect mirrors that existed, that did not radiate light 'through' them, or out of them, that there could be a tiny closeable hole in a box of 4 mirrors making a cube of mirrors, and you stuck a light source in the hole and left it on for a few seconds then closed the hole; would the light reflect off the mirrors indefinitely? And if you note that in those images, there can be seen reflections that are smaller and smaller in apparent scale, I am wondering if, though we cannot see with the naked eye, if the reflection scale does get infinitely small? Or is it based off the size of the box, the size of the molecules that make the mirror, and eventually there will be a smallest possible reflected scale? I suppose the answer must be so, but I guess im wondering what it would depend on or what is the causes of the limit of scale of the reflected image.

a reply to: TMJ1972

Well said! I have come to the conclusion that my first thought was the correct one.

a reply to: AnarchoCapitalist

I recommend scanning the list of threads in the forum you're about to post in to look for duplicates on the first page, in which case you would have hopefully seen this thread is a duplicate of one posted 2 days ago:

Relativity in question

It's about the exact same video, youtube ID CnvOybT2WwU Titled "Dr. Ed Dowdye: Solar Gravitation and Solar Plasma Wave Propagation on Interaction | EU2014 "

Please see my comments in the original thread.

originally posted by: TMJ1972
but you cannot discuss this away with pictures where you can see gravitational lensing, like in those famous ultra deep field pictures made by hubble.

That's the argument I made in the original thread, where I posted one of the most famous of the pictures you're talking about.

please add further comments to the existing conversation here:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

closed.