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Old 30-October-2007, 07:16 PM
Burt Burt is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2006
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Default Orbit of Light

Quote:
Originally Posted by NHR+ View Post
If you put v = c in the circular orbit eq. and solve for r, you'll get
r = GM/c^2 = 0.5Rs.
This is a strictly Newtonian view. The relativistic circular orbit equation includes a factor [1-2GM/(rc^2)]^(-.5) and it yields an orbital radius of 1.5Rs for light around a non-rotating black hole. For a popular (fun) account, see Prof. Kip Thorne's book "Black holes and time warps", 1994, Prologue, page 39. More technical info is available in many sources, e.g. Misner, Thorne and Wheeler's "Gravitation".

I'm actually quite surprised that Dr. Gay made this apparent mistake. Or am I missing something?
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