Scientists say light from distant galaxies took billions of years to reach us. Does that also include bending of light by Black Holes and assumptions on speed of light?

When people say “light took billions of years to reach us,” it is not a direct stopwatch reading—it’s a calculation built on assumptions: scientists measure redshift (stretched light) and then convert it into distance/time using a model that treats the speed of light as fixed and uses expansion rules to translate redshift into “age.”

In my paper, I highlight that this story also sits on interpretive layers—light can take curved paths due to gravity (so “travel time” is not always simple), and from a BK-style cyclic time lens, “billions of years” can be seen as a model-based reading rather than the only possible truth.

For more detail, please see below paper

Related paper: Cyclic Time and Cosmic Measurement: What Light Can’t Fully Prove – globalresearchforum.in