assuming i'm in a car running at speed of light.If i opened my flashlite what's is the light's speed

Answer 1

This question comes up very regularly. If you do a search you will find it has been answered dozens of times in the past few months.

The thing you need to relaise is that the speed of light is an absolute constant. It doesn't matter what speed you are travelling at, the light will always be travelling away from you at the same speed: the speed of light.

The freaky part is that the light from your flashlite would seem to be travelling away from you at the speed of light (C), but to an observer who was sitting still the light would also appears to be travelling away from them at the speed of light. How can that happen? Well it's one of the tricky bits of relativity, but part of the solution lies in understanding that although light never slows down or speeds up relative to any observer it does change frequency.

So to you the light from your flashlite will look quite normal, but to someone sitting still your headlights will appear to be emitting x-rays. The light would be invisible to them.

The corrolary of that is that any light approaching your windshield will be equally shifted into the x-ray part of the spectrum. Although the flashlite will be emitting visible light, any time it strikes an object and reflect back it will reflect back extremely low frequency light that is invisible to the human eye.

So although the light will move at exactly lightspeed, as it always does, you won't be able to see anything by it.

Answer 2

First off, you and your car cannot go the speed of light. Light is pure energy, and you are matter. 100% of energy contributes to speed, whereas matter is a load that must be moved. It's an important distinction - there is no limit to how close to the speed of light you can get, but you can never actually reach the speed of light.

Second, to answer the question, let's make the speed of light more manageable - say, 20 mph. Say your car has no windows, so it's completely closed off to the outside. You turn on your flashlight. You see light move away from you at exactly 20 mph. Assuming you had a big enough car, in one hour, the leading edge of the light would be 20 miles away.

Now imagine someone on the side of the road saw inside your car, watching you and your flashlight. She would see the light moving at 20 mph, and you moving at 19.99999999 mph right behind it. In the 5 or so seconds of observation, she would see the light move a billionth of a millimeter ahead of you (she has very good eyes).

How can that be? How can you, in the car, see light moving at 20 mph faster than you, whereas she sees light moving at the barest, tiniest fraction faster than you? The answer comes from remembering that speed is a rate - distance over time. Since distance is a scalar (a number), time must change depending of the frame of reference. It is not just how you perecive time - time really does change. The way you experience time inside your car is very different than the way the outside observer experiences time. Einstein proved this in his special law of relativity, and thousands of experiments have confirmed this is exactly what happens.

You turn on your flashlight in your windowless car, and one hour later light moved 20 miles ahead, exactly the same as if you weren't in the car. Somewhat disappointed, you stop the car and open the door only to find a billion years have passed on the outside. That is what is meant by time is relative based on the frame of reference, but that the speed of light (energy) is constant in all frames of reference.

Answer 3

Assuming that you could travel at the speed of light, which current theory states is impossible, from your own frame of reference you'd appear to be traveling with infinite velocity and any trip would take no time even though stationary observers on the earth would be able to measure the amount of time that it took you to travel. Therefore you'd never have enough time to turn on your flashlight. or look at the beam if you had the flashlight turned on before you left. If you had a fancy, schmancy concept car that could travel out into space say with no resistance against your car and you continued to accelerate by continuously adding constant energy, then inside the car you'd perceive linear acceleration , but your friends on earth, awestruck by your awesome car, would perceive your acceleration as linear at first, but eventually flattening out to zero with your speed approach the speed of light but never quite getting there.
Another thing if you were traveling the speed of light for the distance of a light year then to you your trip would have taken no time at all, not even a fraction of a second. People back on earth would have experienced a year of time passed.

Answer 4

you couldn't be moving the speed of light, but let's say you're moving slightly slower than the speed of light. I am no physics professor, but this is my understanding (someone msg me if I'm wrong)

If you open the flashlight, the light from that will also move at the speed of light. It doesn't seem to make sense in your head but that's the way it works. The speed of light is always the same, no matter where you are or how fast you're moving, or how fast the source of the light is moving.

Answer 5

What ever is your speed and what ever is your direction, the light 's speed will be measured one and the same.

That is the speed of light is independent of the speed of the observer's speed.

Read the above sentence again and again till you catch up the meaning of this sentence.

The special theory of relativity came into existance only because of this fact.

Answer 6

Speed of light is always same at any reference frame.

It will appear to be same speed to you and someone who's not moving. Weird as it sounds.

Actually that is weird question. I'm not sure what you'll see, but speed of light is alway same.

Answer 7

From reference point speed of light is 300,000 km/sec. You have to discretize the motion of your car as well as light into photons. At "X" sec when you lit the flash, the photons released will travel 300,000 km/sec. The reference is same as the position of your car at that time. So speed of light from that reference point is 300,000 km/sec

Answer 8

Sorry, you cannot assume that you are in a car running at the spped of light. Not possible even in theory

Answer 9

The light itself would be zero. It is like a person on an airplane. When they walk you do not consider them to be walking 400 mph.

Answer 10

the same speed according to einstein, who i believe calculated light is at a constant and unchanging speed