is the speed of light relitive?

Question

people say that only non informational things, like gama rays, can move faster than light. but, what if two masses , like comets, that were moving at near the speed of light, say 99%. if they sped past each other wouldn't it apear from one comet, that the other was going past the speed of light(obviously they wouldnt see each other pass but they could see each other coming) if they colided wouldnt the forces cause something to get launched at a speed greater than light?

Answer 1

Yes but only to the person observing from one comet the speed of one is only relitive to the still space it occupies , but yes compared to the other it would appeare to go faster than the speed of light.

Answer 2

Firstly, gamma rays are photons like any other, and they move at exactly c. Always.

Now, for your second case: The most important thing about special relativity is that you can define ANY inertial frame of reference as the rest frame. There is no "privileged" frame to measure against. As such, one would be wholly justified in defining "comet 1" as the rest frame.

Once you do that, it becomes clear that "comet 2" can not appear to be travelling faster than c, since we've now defined "comet 1" to be at rest.

The addition of velocities in special relativity is FAR from intuitive. You have to take into account the effects of both length contraction and time dilation, but the upshot of it is that velocities add asymptotically towards the speed of light.

Answer 3

The speed of light is not relative. If you were traveling 50% the speed of light, relative to a space station, and you fired a missile at 60% of the speed of light, relative to you, it would not appear to the people on the space station that the missile is going faster than the speed of light.

There is an equation to figure out the exact percentage of the speed of light the missile would travel relative to the people in the space station. It comes out to close to the speed of light, but never exeeding it.

Think of light like a streched out slinky traveling along. When you push on it to make it go faster, it doesn't go faster but it compresses. Light does the same thing when you try to speed it up. The wave length shortens causing the frequency of the light to increase. So if you were going close to the speed of light and shone a flashlight, the people on the space station would detect this light as being a different frequency than you do.

Answer 4

Yes. The speed of light is relative. For example, if a flashlight was traveling at the speed of light and then it was turned on you would still be able to see the beam.

Since outter space has a negative friction point, to objects both traveling at the speed of light colide would cause the debris to travel faster than its source.

Answer 5

Gamma rays are light... They move at the speed of light.

Study relativity, it will explain your comet theorem. But the answer is, no they will not appear to be moving faster than light. Time and space change as your speed changes relative to another object. It is not possible for two objects to have relative speeds greater than the speed of light.

Answer 6

Great question. Einstein discovered relativity by asking teh exact same question. OUr comon sense would indicate that were we to ride one of teh comets then the oncoming one would look like it's coming at us faster than teh speed of light. BUt that just can't be, because then it would vanish since the ligth form teh comet wouldnt get to us by teh time we hit te other comet, which causes all sorts of problmes, not teh least being that objects dont all of a sudden vanish. IN gfact the only way for that comet NOT to go fatser than teh speed of light is for space and time to contract as your own comet speeds up so as to keep teh other comet's speedbelow teh speed of light.
So as Einstein realized, constancy of teh speed of light implies that time and space are different for different people

Answer 7

It has been experinmentally proved that the speed of light is absolute.

The mass length and time which once considered to be fixed are relative.
In the case of colliding bodies moving with different speeds, the speed of the colliding bodies has to be adjusted so as to keep the speed of light measuered by them is always C.

This follows that any object cannot exceed the speed of ligtht.

Velocities of bodies cannot be simply added to give a value more than the speed of light. Correction has to be applied to their speed according to the ratio of the speed to the speed of light.

Answer 8

all speeds are relative

a car is going 60 mph, relative to the road

it is going much less than that relative to the car in front

and much faster than 60 mph relative to the sun

Your question has no meaning unless you are clear about the speeds. Most people believe, along with Einstein, that nothing (including gamma rays) can go faster than the speed of light, relative to anything else.

Answer 9

The speed of light is not relative. Einstein's theory says that any observers, moving at any speed, with any relation to other observers, will always observe the same speed for light. For that to happen, weird things must happen, like observers changing their mass as a function of their speed.

Also gamma rays do not exceed light speed.

Answer 10

I don't know about speeding it up but there have been experiments in which scientists have not only slowed down but even stopped and captured light for a short period of time. So, everything in that laboratory was in essence traveling faster than light.