how to get bind to look at the root servers

[Hayden Wimmer]

i have a dns server running on redhat 7.0
i am running bind 8.2.3

the domain that is being hosted by my server (venus) will lookup and ping
any of the ip/hosts
that it is hosting..however, when i do this

nslookup www.someothersdomain.com it says that

www.someotherdomain.com
host unreachable

i can ping the ip address directly

i am not sure how this works...
what if i have a mail server using my dns server...how will it find the
outside world???

i thought that if my server didnt know how to find the address it would go
out and ask a root server?

i am not sure what to do to make this box work as a production dns server
when i cant lookup domains that
it isnt hosting.

please help

hayden