What would happen if you were traveling the speed of light in a car and then turned on your headlights?

Answer 1

Wow. At first I didn't think anything, b/c you'd travel at the same speed as the light, so it would be unchanging. But, after re-reading, since you were traveling at the speed of light first, I don't think you'd ever see the beams b/c the light would in essence "stay" right at the headlights. You'd never see the beam. However, oncoming traffic would see that your lights were on b/c the light bulb filament would be glowing and that source would move at the same speed as your car.
Also, you've got a pretty fancy car.

Answer 2

spaceman_spiff is right. First, you can't travel at the speed of light (it would take infinite energy). But, say you were going at 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% the speed of light (close enough? If not, add a few 9s).

According to Relativity, the photons your headlight put out would still be traveling at the speed of light, so it would look the same as it always does, just like you were in a parked car. Kind of boring. Much more interesting: how did you get that fast in the first place?

Answer 3

You'd have a whole bunch of photons pile up inside the headlights, eventually their minsicule mass would be enough to break the headlight, and they would stream through the cracks to spread into the engine, etc...

Well, more likely, your car would break down, or the battery would burn out first. Friction on the tires would cause the road to ignite, or the car wouldn't have any way to accelerate. You'd probably also find yourself featured in a lot of car commercials.

Or maybe since speed is relative to an object, and all objects appear to be stationary... Naw, the laws of physics say that light can't move faster than the speed of light.

What would happen if you turned on the tail lights? Would you leave a trail of stationary photons behind you?

Answer 4

Supposing both of the conditions mentioned are both possible,(being in no way a physicist), I thought about this for a long time and the most logical thing I could come up with is that if anyone could see your car with their naked eyes, your car would look like it was glowing, since your car and the light emanating from it are traveling at the same speed.

Answer 5

If you were travelling at the speed of light, your mass would become infinite, so you wouldn't be able to lift your arm to turn on the headlights. Simple.

Answer 6

The light would never travel beyond its plastic covers.

Since you are traveling at the speed of light, and the theory of relativity postulates that the speed of light is a constant, while time is relative, your movements would be greatly slowed down almost to a standstill.

Answer 7

As the car accelerates to the speed of light, parts of it will fly off, start burning and disintegrate- leaving nothing. No car, no headlights. Nuff said.

Answer 8

The light would never escape the plastic cover of your headlights.

Answer 9

i know that if you were looking at a wall-clock which was fixed somewhere outside of you car and wasn't moving while you were, you would always see that it shows the same time. so i think that you would never see the light of your headlights.

Answer 10

if i was drivin speed of light then i wont need a headlight......
and if i turned on the headlight then it wont b speed of light it wud b speed of darkness wid a turned on headlight..