Light Bending: Visualisation · Signals from the Periphery

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Theory

Einstein · GR

Limb α

1.75″

vs Newton

1×

Nearest b

…

Bend there

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Shown

×350

Light Bending · 1919 test
α = 4GM / c²b · falls off as 1/b
Limb: 1.75″ GR · 0.87″ Newton
Sobral 1.98″±0.12 · Príncipe 1.61″±0.30
VLBI today · 0.02% of GR
29 May 1919 · Príncipe & Sobral

Component

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Deflection, live

α = 4GM / c²b = 1.75″ / b

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Exaggeration

shown at×350

View

Which theory bends the light

Controls

Exaggeration×350

the real limb shift is ≈1.75″, a thousandth of the Sun's width; the true arc-seconds always show in the readout

Impact parameter b (Rays)1.20 R☉

how close the ray shaves past the Sun; closer means sharper bend, as 1/b

Display

True (night) positions

Guide rings (b in R☉)

Remove Moon (daytime glare)

Component labels

Auto-rotate (Rays)

Readout · live

Limb deflection

1.75″

Newton's half

0.87″

Nearest ray b

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Bend at that b

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Sobral 1919

1.98″ ± 0.12

Príncipe 1919

1.61″ ± 0.30

VLBI today

0.02%

Why exactly twice

Light falls toward the Sun like anything else: that alone gives 0.87″, and Newton's corpuscle theory (Soldner 1801) predicts exactly it. Completed general relativity adds a second, equal contribution from the curvature of space itself. The sum, 1.75″, is exactly double, and that clean factor of two is what the 1919 eclipse was designed to decide.

What is exact vs stylised

Exact: every star's outward shift is computed from the weak-field law α = 4GM/c²b at its true distance from the Sun; the limb value 1.75″, Newton's 0.87″, the factor of two, and the 1919/VLBI numbers are established physics and history. Stylised: the one big liberty is the exaggeration factor, displayed live at all times (the real shift is invisible at screen scale). The corona, chromosphere, glare and the star field are illustration; the ray-view bend angle is exaggerated like everything else, and the b and α it reports are true values.

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