thats the thing bro. mathematics IS jargon, its a means of communication between specialists in a field which seems vaguely familiar to those outside....
...for YOU the idea of gravity distorting space and this distortion redirecting light may seem like the most obvious thing in the world but i still dont get it at all. not one bit.
i understand that if i roll a marble on a flat surface it goes straight, but if i roll that same marble on a curved surface it will follow the curve, but WHAT IS THE SURFACE THATS MOVING THE LIGHT OFF COURSE? something must be interacting with the photons to alter their course, yet if gravity aint doin it (and thats my best suspect since gravity has a proven track record of moving things of course) then what is the mechanism of the interaction between the presumed curvature of space and the light which does not otherwise seem disturbed by space?
also, i GET the concept of evolution in the broad strokes. critters with longer necks can feed on higher branches so longer necks give advantage, and eventaully you get giraffes... i see that. but gravity (with it's regular habit of moving things) is not responsible for the movement of light, instead gravity is changing space, and space (which does not seem to do anything usually) now moves the light off course because it's distorted... dude. even if i assume a photon has no mass, not a bit, absolute zero mass, and that gravity DOES in fact distort space, HOW does gravity distort space, and WHY does this distortion effect a photon's course. since photons have no charge it cant bee lectro-magnetic, since they have no mass, it therefore cant be gravitic, this therefore has removed as i understand it, bot the strong force, AND the weak force from the equation leaving what? a third force? or are electromagnetic forces and gravitic forces no longer the strong and weak forces of quantum mechanics?
K, I like when you make sense. You have stated the problem. It is a matter of your beliefs. You are finally admitting that your world view does not jib with the experimental evidence. Good for you. But, you stray when you think this is a right-fight. You stray when you dismiss science as si-fi, mumble, fantasy and myth. Again, just a world view problem.
So, I for one, stipulate to all your analogy as patently un-useful. I so get what you mean, so, leave it all out. Just straight talk please.
Math is not "like" a box of chocolate. It is the Box. A container for ideas. Math is not jargon. Math is numbers. Numbers form patterns and things reduced to more and more simple number patterns, finally, can show some symmetry to the human mind, let's say it that way.
But, I see you are on the right track now, yet, defensive. You would not have been so had you not set out on this right-fight so long ago.
Can you not simply understand that there is no Theory of Gravity for just the reasons you say? But, please, again no more, with the analogy. We are not talking about rolling marbles on a surface, that was an old analogy. Nothing is interacting with the photon. It's path is modified, like a dirt bike track. A bigger hill, takes more dirt. The path of the bike is longer. It comes up higher and comes down longer on a bigger hill.
It the same with Black Holes. That, I see is another Red Herring for you. The old Press Release version has light being effected by Gravity. I understand. Don't fight us. This is from the Press, not Science. Actually, now the thinking is the light path is made more lengthy, in the super-super dense SPACE inside a BH, it never gets out. It goes down and around, and before it can make it back out it, the photon energy is absorb into maintaining the dense knot of space time that is forming the gravity in the first place. Another clue. There is no matter left in a black hole. Just a Knot of pure Gravity source.
And Pad's picture is not completely correct, but needs an upgrade. The light that we thought was simply refracted is not. It is curved. So that sharp angle and only 2 ray paths is not incorrect. It is a magnifying sphere of PERHAPS crushed space itself.
No, K, don't go wild with this. We can calculate the value of distortion. It amounts to, get this, less than 1/10 of the width of a Helium atom. That is what the gravity wave experiment is looking for. I'm not sure they have the sensitivity, yet.
So, we don't know. That is why it is frustrating with you. First, you act like you know and we don't. Then you challenge it all very oddly. And now finally you understand it is a world view problem, that's all. We are all waiting, now with you, for more experiments.
Yet, you want to run ahead. You want the final answer. You phoned friends and we are saying wait with us, brother. We too would like to know WHY. So, I welcome your last paragraph. It shows you are doing some thinking and not just arguing from a weak position.
So, K might now ask, if crushed space slows down light (in relativity, of course) by making it take a longer path, then what would space look like if it was crushed enough to stop light all together?
Space would then look like Matter. So, there is a very simple Key here somewhere. Space and Matter could be the same thing. And that is why they are so easily compared with E = M c2 Why is it Squared? Leads me to think Space Density is a 4th root of Light Speed. I somehow am intuitively skipping the Cube Root. But, that's how math works. Definitions for intuition to work against.
We are hot on the trail, but no final answer, just the Current Understanding.