Gravitational lens
Light bending by mass between source and observer / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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A gravitational lens is matter, such as a cluster of galaxies or a point particle, that bends light from a distant source as it travels toward an observer. The amount of gravitational lensing is described by Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity.[1][2] If light is treated as corpuscles travelling at the speed of light, Newtonian physics also predicts the bending of light, but only half of that predicted by general relativity.[3][4][5][6]
Orest Khvolson (1924)[7] and Frantisek Link (1936)[8] are generally credited with being the first to discuss the effect in print, but it is more commonly associated with Einstein, who made unpublished calculations on it in 1912[9] and published an article on the subject in 1936.[10]
In 1937, Fritz Zwicky posited that galaxy clusters could act as gravitational lenses, a claim confirmed in 1979 by observation of the Twin QSO SBS 0957+561.