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Originally Posted by Wdnesday
But now I'm insisting that light does bend to a degree without help from atmosphere or anything else. Diffusion. Am I wrong?
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You're thinking of diffraction. The wave-like properties of light cause it to 'bend' slightly around edges as it passes them.
This property is very useful to astronomers, as it allows them to make spectroscopes to analyse the light received from the stars. By passing the light through a diffraction grating, it can be 'smeared out' into it's component wavelengths and examined to determine what elements are in the star, how the star is moving, etc.
(Light can also be bent by passing it through gravitational fields, but that's a whole new ball-game!)