Poll: If you are traveling the speed of light and turn on your headlights: what happens?

[JetsFanatic]

 

[Rallispec]

your head explodes

 

[SoylentGreen]

Read about theory of relativity. It's um like brand new.

 

[spanky]

post++ happens

 

[Rallispec]

Originally posted by: Kiyup
Read about theory of relativity. It's um like brand new.

haha.. dont' know why, but that reminded me of the simpsons.

homer: "lisa, in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"

 

[Mr.IncrediblyBored]

Not sure if this is a legitimate question, but if you're already moving at the speed of light, your headlights wouldn't do anything.

 

[DnetMHZ]

You create a rift in space-time and get transported to an alternate universe.

 

[Demon-Xanth]

The question doesn't have an answer because the situation posed cannot happen.

 

[deerslayer]

Your car explodes.

 

[Mr N8]

At that point, your vehicle has expanded so much that your headlights have broken, thus nothing happens.

 

[MangoTBG]

If you were moving at light speed you wouldn't exist, as far as my little knowledge goes. I was told by a teacher that "If" we ever achieved light speed we'd turn into pure energy. However if that's true or not we'll probably never know. It's all theory


One interesting fact, which you are basing this question off of (maybe not personally) is that let's say you have a gun and you are on a train that travels the exact speed at which that gun fires a bullet. For grins and giggles let's say it's 2000 ft/sec. If you are at the back of the train and fire the gun the bullet will just drop out of the gun because the the speed of the train equals the speed of the bullet. BUT if you're at the front of the train and fire that same gun ahead of the train, the bullet will be going at 4000ft/se.

So, actually after thinking about that...let's say we can go the speed of light, and we have something else that can go the same speed, if we launched that second item in the same direction it will be going 2xspeed of light.

 

[PoPPeR]

Originally posted by: Demon-Xanth
The question doesn't have an answer because the situation posed cannot happen.

why not?

 

[Torghn]

This is a stupid question. When you say you are traveling at the speed of light what is this in relation to? The real question should be "If someine is moveing away from you at the speed of light, and he turns on this headlights: what happesn/what do YOU see."

 

[Rallispec]

One interesting fact, which you are basing this question off of (maybe not personally) is that let's say you have a gun and you are on a train that travels the exact speed at which that gun fires a bullet. For grins and giggles let's say it's 2000 ft/sec. If you are at the back of the train and fire the gun the bullet will just drop out of the gun because the the speed of the train equals the speed of the bullet. BUT if you're at the front of the train and fire that same gun ahead of the train, the bullet will be going at 4000ft/se.

um, why does the bullet care if you're at the front or back of the train? you're still going the same speed. By that logic, if you're standing in the middle of the train, the bullet would shoot ahead at 3000ft/se..


if you shot from a stand still, and then jumped on the train at the same speed as the bullet-- it would appear to just fall..

but if you're moving at 2000ft/se-- and shoot, the bullet will go forward at an additional 2000/ft/se. regardless of where on the train you are standing.


assuming i learned anything in physic.s

 

[Turkish]

this topic is....









dumb

 

[Demon-Xanth]

Originally posted by: PoPPeR

Originally posted by: Demon-Xanth
The question doesn't have an answer because the situation posed cannot happen.

why not?

As you get faster, time slows down for you, and you get more massive. Although it feels like you're accellerating at a constant rate, you're actually slowing down in accelleration. It's basically a tangent curve where the closer you get to the limit, the slower you approach it. And the curve never intersects.

 

[TMPadmin]

What if you are Wile E. Coyote and you were on the train would you still get hit by that same train? Or would the bullet make a turn and shoot out the train's headlight, at the speed of light.

Please don't make me get into this again. Once I perfect my time machine I'll come back and answer, if I feel like it.


Edit from year 2034
I don't feel like it anymore.

 

[Finnkc]

the speed of light is the speed of light in vacuum is exactly 299,792,458 m/s (metres per second), no madder who is watching. If a direction is added then it is no longer a speed it's a velocity.

anyway nothing would happen you could turn the lights on but they would never light anything even a nM in front of them, Thus they would appear to be off, and not lit at all.

 

[MangoTBG]

Explanation of the train/bullet topic

I had read that last year just cruising the website. It's a great website, if you ask me.

 

[dxkj]

Originally posted by: Rallispec

One interesting fact, which you are basing this question off of (maybe not personally) is that let's say you have a gun and you are on a train that travels the exact speed at which that gun fires a bullet. For grins and giggles let's say it's 2000 ft/sec. If you are at the back of the train and fire the gun the bullet will just drop out of the gun because the the speed of the train equals the speed of the bullet. BUT if you're at the front of the train and fire that same gun ahead of the train, the bullet will be going at 4000ft/se.

um, why does the bullet care if you're at the front or back of the train? you're still going the same speed. By that logic, if you're standing in the middle of the train, the bullet would shoot ahead at 3000ft/se..


if you shot from a stand still, and then jumped on the train at the same speed as the bullet-- it would appear to just fall..

but if you're moving at 2000ft/se-- and shoot, the bullet will go forward at an additional 2000/ft/se. regardless of where on the train you are standing.


assuming i learned anything in physic.s

He meant to say you are at the back of the train SHOOTING BACKWARDS, ie opposite of the direction the train is moving at. He didnt really explicitly say that, but it was implied.

 

[MangoTBG]

Actually after reading that...this kind of answers the original question....

What's true for bullets, however, is not true of some other things that you might "shoot" from the front of the train. A great example is sound waves. If you turn on the stereo in your living room, sound waves "shoot out" of the speaker at the speed of sound -- something like 700 mph. The waves propogate through the air at that fixed speed, and they can go no faster. So if you put a speaker at the front of the 1,000 mph train, the sound waves will not depart the train at 1,700 mph. They cannot go faster than the speed of sound. This is the reason why planes traveling faster than the speed of sound create

 

[MacBaine]

Originally posted by: MangoTBG

So, actually after thinking about that...let's say we can go the speed of light, and we have something else that can go the same speed, if we launched that second item in the same direction it will be going 2xspeed of light.

You need to take some basic physics classes, kid.

 

[Lonyo]

The time it took for the light from an object to get to you would be the same as the time it took to get to the object, so you couldn't see anything anyway, because you'd be on/in the object when you saw it, so headlights would have no effect since you couldn't see anything anyway.

 

[hdeck]

Originally posted by: spanky
post++ happens

:beer:

 

[glugglug]

You can't go the speed of light.

However, if you somehow did, the light energy not escaping the headlamps would cause them to heat up and explode.