Niloc Posted June 4, 2005 Share Posted June 4, 2005 If you are in a vehicle going the speed of light, what happens if you turn on your headlights? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vejlin Posted June 4, 2005 Share Posted June 4, 2005 Then your brain will melt and the world will fall apart. So don't ever do it OK? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eastman Posted June 4, 2005 Share Posted June 4, 2005 If you were already moving at the speed of light, then the light from the headlights would travel in a straight line from the time the photons were ejected. They would only leave the headlight once the vehicle started to slow down or changed direction. However, IIRC (modern physics/QM were taken 15+ years ago) based on the length compression in relativity theory, the vehicle would be compressed to the thickness of a piece of paper before reaching the speed of light. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haldir Posted June 5, 2005 Share Posted June 5, 2005 George you remind me of a freind that is the head of the computer dept up at Unv of Idaho, ha ha Randy M Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lars Porsenna Posted June 5, 2005 Share Posted June 5, 2005 Also, you would not actually be ABLE to turn on the lights, since once you reach the speed of light, observable time will have stopped. Something would have to physically slow you enough that time re-starts, since you also would not be able to hit the brakes either... Damon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricJ Posted June 5, 2005 Share Posted June 5, 2005 it's relativity! granted you can't go the spead of light, however, should you be going .98 the speed of light and turned on a light, it would appear to you to be moving away from you at the spead of light. Mostly because your time would have slowed down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaintRigger Posted June 5, 2005 Share Posted June 5, 2005 It really all depends on your frame of reference, on if gravity is a constant or dependant on the rest of the mass in the universe, and a bunch of other stuff that we don't know about and can't experiment with... besides, I don't think particles with a mass can go the speed of light anyways. According to einstein - light would behave exactly the same from your vantage point. You could look at your passenger, see the numbers on the radio etc.. your headlights would seem from your position to work normally - and if there was something in front of you moving at the same speed, then your headlights would illuminate it. If you are outside the car, or looking at the road - it's a whole other story. But since we can't experiment with it - and since relativety is a theory - lets just say your head explodes and the universe collapses in on itself - therefore making me accidently spill my paint water on my shorts. I will then in turn look for you in the next life and punch you. SO answer - if you are going the speed of light and you turn your headlights on, I will punch you in the afterlife. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Firebird Posted June 5, 2005 Share Posted June 5, 2005 I say give it a try and let us know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niloc Posted June 5, 2005 Author Share Posted June 5, 2005 Ok ... now that's clear as mud, I got another question. If the speed of light is 186,000 miles per second, what is the speed of dark? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Administrators kit Posted June 6, 2005 Super Administrators Share Posted June 6, 2005 Ok ... now that's clear as mud, I got another question. If the speed of light is 186,000 miles per second, what is the speed of dark? Igor. Like how in Young Frankenstein the doctor looks over his shoulder and Igor is just there. It's that fast. Or, dark is the absence of light. It is the absence of those subatomic particles that light consists of. By abstract extension, dark is a measure of the absence of quantifiable matter. Dark exists when light does not. Since it is simultaneously there and not there at any given instant, dark is infinitely fast. Like Igor. kit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twjolson Posted June 6, 2005 Share Posted June 6, 2005 It's been pretty much answered. Something with mass, be it your car, or a small proton can not reach the speed of light. It would require an infinite amount of energy to reach the speed of light. Light and gravity both go the speed of light because the particles have no mass. HOWEVER, let's just say broke physics and were able to go the speed of light. Everything would be normal from your point of view. As someone said, the inside of the car would look normal, and the headlights if you turn them on would work normal too. Physics dictates that when you are traveling at a constant velocity (no accelerating) that it's exactly the same as if you were floating freely through space. There is no experiment you can perform that would prove if you were moving. Thus, if you turned on your headlights, they must work normally, otherwise that would be an experiment to prove your motion. Now, it's what people you would zoom past where things get really neat. But I won't go into that. Short story, they would see your car compressed to a significant fraction of it's regular size. And they would see you slowed to a significant fraction of "normal" flow of time. I love physics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pirate Captain Remy Posted June 6, 2005 Share Posted June 6, 2005 Can anyone tell me if there is a doppler effect with light the way there is with sound? Also my take on the speed of light on relativity theory is that there has been an awful lot of scientific theories that were later proven wrong. So we can't say for sure if 186,000 mi/s is the limit. Unfortunately, right now it is infinitely improbable to prove otherwise. So all I feel we can really say is we haven't any proof, but we have a good idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaintRigger Posted June 6, 2005 Share Posted June 6, 2005 Yes, if you are going a fracton of the speed of light and your lights reflected off of something - they'd bounce back in a different wavelength. This is actually something that is used to gage the distance and speed of stars and galaxys moving about in the universe. One can measure the red-shift and determine what direction and how fact that body is going. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lars Porsenna Posted June 6, 2005 Share Posted June 6, 2005 IIRC, Gravity breaks the "speed of light" rule, since it is instantly felt and any distance. Theoretically, gravity is "caused" by Gravitons, a yet-to-be-discovered subatomic particle. Someone correct me if wrong. Yes, light does have a Doppler effect. Used in Astronomy quite frequently. Damon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twjolson Posted June 6, 2005 Share Posted June 6, 2005 IIRC, Gravity breaks the "speed of light" rule, since it is instantly felt and any distance. Theoretically, gravity is "caused" by Gravitons, a yet-to-be-discovered subatomic particle. Someone correct me if wrong. Yes, light does have a Doppler effect. Used in Astronomy quite frequently. Damon. Newtons Theory dictated that gravity was instantanious. But when Einstein made his special relativity, which introduced the speed of light rule he realised that he had to overthrow Newtons theory of gravity because (among other things) gravity broke the speed of light. In Einsteins theory, gravity goes exactly the speed of light. It has not been proven, however a few experiments have proven it, but they are in dispute last I heard. Part of the speed of light rule is that everything moves through not only space, but also through time. And the faster you go, the more you go through space, and less of time. So even if you are sitting still, you are still moving through Spacetime at the speed of light, however the majority of your movement is through time, not space. However, when something goes light speed, it's devoting all of that movement to spacetime through space, and nothing for time. So for something to go faster then light, it would actually be going backwards in time, as the theory goes. Yes, this is all theory. Einsteins theory of gravity is just that, a theory about gravity. Same with Special Reletivity, it's a theory. We know that Einsteins theory isn't complete, it will eventually be replaced by something else. However, a century later, Einstein's theories have been experimently verified to a level of prescion never before seen in history, with not signs of deviation yet. Yes, if you are going a fracton of the speed of light and your lights reflected off of something - they'd bounce back in a different wavelength. From my understanding, they would leave your headlights at a differant wavelength, redshifted because ofyour motion. The actual bouncing of an object wouldn't effect them; assuming it was a still object. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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