Darby
I had to look that up on the surface gravity of the sun. 274 m/sec^2 . If I divide that by 9.8 m/sec^2 (one Earth gee), I get a ratio of 27.9 times the gravity here on Earth. I used the proportional method too. 90 degrees divided by 1.7 degrees gives a proportional ratio of 52.9 . So if 1.7 degrees of arc occurs with 27.9 gees on the sun, then 90 degrees of arc would require a sun gravity strength of 1475.9 gees. That is the value I calculate to cause a laser beam to deflect as depicted in JT's laser pic. It's not in the millions of gees, but I doubt very seriously that the cells in a human body would retain their structure. Probably turn to a puddle of mush very rapidly.
And then the other problem with a gee force in this range is: How come all the other light reflecting back to the camera from the interior parts of the car is not distorted too? The whole image should be an unintelligible blur. But this angle of attack on the story requires a humungous gravity field.
In the story as you quoted above, John says no more than 2 gees of gravity force is developed by his gadget. So I decided to stick to the story and calculate the amount of laser beam deflection if exposed to a 2 gee force. It is a known fact that gravity bends light. And given enough distance of travel through a gee field, that laser beam could be deflected up to 90 degrees. Distance is the key. The less the distance that the laser beam travels, the less the amount of deflection that will occur.
Originally I calculated the amount of deflection of the laser beam over a distance of 9 miles. The value I got using a 10 digit calculator was about 3/4 of a millionth of an inch of deflection on the laser beam. That calculator wont work if I choose 4 feet as the distance. But 4 feet is a more reasonable estimate on the beam length, considering that the beam was made visible by the cigar smoke. So I'm going to use a scientific calculator to calculate the beam deflection over 4 feet of travel under the influence of a 2 gee gravity field. The formula is "d = .5at^2" for calculating the amount of distance the laser beam will deflect. The gee force is 32 feet/sec^2. To calculate the time it takes for the laser beam to travel over 4 feet, just divide 4 feet by 186,282 miles/sec. Change the miles/sec to feet/sec by multiplying 186,282 and 5280 together. Which comes out to 983,568,960 feet light will travel in one second. Dividing 4 feet by 983,568,960 feet/sec gives a time of .000,000,004,066 seconds. Multiplying that result by itself gives the required t^2 for plugging into the formula. I get .000,000,000,000,000,016,539 sec^2 . The amount of beam deflection with the above values comes out to .000,000,000,000,000,264 feet. Or the value in inches would be .000,000,000,000,003,175 inches of deflection (multiply feet by 12 to get inches). In comparison, the approximate width of an atom is .000,000,003,937 . So the amount of beam deflection over 4 feet is less than one millionth the width of an atom. This would not be detectable to the human eye. The photo should be depicting a laser beam as straight as an arrow. But it doesn't, which makes it a deceptive lie to those uneducated about the physical rules our universe operates under.
Now Titorite's argument is that there is no way I can know how far that laser beam has traveled. But it makes no difference because any reasonable calculated distance will show that the laser beam will still appear to the human eye as being straight as an arrow. Even though I originally calculated 9 miles as the distance, I doubt very seriously that anyone could blow smoke that far to illuminate the laser beam. So 9 miles is not a reasonable distance to choose, even though at that distance the laser beam would still appear to be as straight as an arrow to the human eye.
So the math definitively states as FACT that a laser beam can not be deflected as depicted in the picture under the influence of a 2 gee gravity field.
Now I know you like to attack the story based on what we know about black holes. But what we know about them is entirely theoretical. No real facts yet. I seriously doubt black holes are real. So to me, Titor's gadget operates on a fictional mathematical concept. No real support for a story if you are using fiction as the foundation for its credibility.