2011-10-30 06:35:21 - Mainstream understanding of gravitational light bending fundamentals as predicted by the light bending theory of General Relativity have been found to be completely wrong and/or seriously misunderstood by the bulk of the community of physical science.

Recent findings show that a straight forward application of Gauss’s law for gravity supported by nearly a century of intense observational evidence clearly reveals that gravitational light bending in empty vacuum space does not take place. The star filled skies should be filled with images of the Einstein rings. Of course, this statement assumes the validity of the gravitational light bending rule of Einstein's General Relativity and it also assumes that the light bending theory applies directly to the vacuum space that is free of refracting plasma atmospheres. The burning question here is: Where are the Einstein rings? The correct answer to this question may be a direct consequence of the mean astronomical distances between the stars which forces the impact parameters of the theoretically bent light ray to lie well beyond the plasma atmosphere of the gravitating stellar mass. This is supported by a clear lack of observational evidence for the presence of Einstein rings or gravitational light bending effects as predicted by the gravitational light bending rule of General Relativity.

Findings clearly reveal that the important fundamentals in Mathematical Physics pertaining to the subject matter of Gravitational Lensing have been either completely ignored or seriously misapplied in the literature and in the lectures. A a consequence of the failed attempts to detect Macro Lensing as predicted by General Relativity, astrophysical observations on gravitational light bending and a host of other lensing events have been either incorrectly interpreted or incorrectly labeled as Micro Lensing. The past century of research on lensing in our region of space convincingly reveals a clear lack of evidence for gravitational lensing in the plasma-free vacuum space, just above the solar plasma rim of the sun and of the stars. This is straightforwardly revealed simply by applying

the Gauss' law of gravity to the mass of the sun. A clear lack of evidence for Einstein rings persistently exist in the skies of countless numbers of stars, where the candidates for gravitational lenses and the light sources are by good chance co-linearly aligned with the earth based observer. Moreover, a lack of evidence for gravitational lensing exist in the time resolved images of the stars orbiting about what is assumed to be a black hole at the site of Sagittarius A*, the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Findings consistently show that the rays of star light are lensed primarily in the plasma rim of the sun and hardly in the vacuum space just slightly above the plasma rim of the sun. The thin plasma atmosphere of the sun represents a clear example of an indirect interaction involving an interfering plasma medium between the gravitational field of the sun and the rays of light from the stars. Since the lower boundary of this vacuum space is only a fraction of a solar radius above the solar plasma rim, it is exposed to virtually the same gravitational field. The thin plasma atmosphere of the sun appears to represent an indirect interaction involving an interfering plasma medium between the gravitational field of the sun and the rays of star light. An application of Gauss' law clearly shows that, if the light bending rule of General Relativity were valid, then a light bending effect due to the gravitational field of the sun should be easily detectable with current technical means in Astrophysics available to us at the analytical Gaussian spherical surfaces of multiple solar radii. More importantly, the very same light bending equation obtained by General Relativity was derived from pure classical assumptions of a minimum energy path of a light ray in the plasma rim, exposed to the gravitational gradient field of the sun. The results are found to be totally independent of the frequency of the gravitationally bent light ray.