Einstein deduced that gravity bends light by imagining a flashlight shining horizontally in a lift accelerating upwards (Figure 5.8). As the lift accelerates up, the light curves relative to it, so if gravity equates to acceleration, it should bend light. Light should “fall” by gravity as matter does and light passing the sun is indeed bent. The logic worked but how can matter move massless light at a distance if the standard model has no particle that can push light around?
The sun is so massive that its quantum field fills the solar system to keep planets in orbit far beyond the earth 93 million miles away. A photon passing the sun is a processing wave that moves by spreading in every direction. The processing gradient of the sun that is its gravity also slows down the spread of the photon wave nearer the sun for the same reason that light is bent by refraction (3.6.2) when it moves from air to water.
Water has more matter than air so it requires more quantum processing which slows down the node cycle rate to make light move slower in water. If one side of a spreading wave goes slower than the rest, it is skewed that way, so light entering water bends in the direction of the water because it is a spreading wave. In the same way, a photon of light passing the sun is a spreading wave that bends towards the sun because the network closer to the sun runs more slowly. Light has no mass but it has quantum processing so the gravity gradient of the sun bends it.