If you are travelling faster than the speed of light, would you be able to see where you are going?

Answer 1

Faster than light speed travel is, by our current physical understanding of the universe, impossible, so any answer is merely speculation and virtually meaningless in the real world.

However, there might be something to be gained by realizing that one important principle of the theory of relativity is that in any reference frame, the speed of light is always measured to be the same.
This might mean that if you were traveling faster than light and (as the common question is phrased) "turned on your head lights", you would still see light traveling away from you at the speed of light, whereas some outside, "stationary" observer to which your velocity is being measure observed you, they would see the light traveling a the speed of light as well, but this would be slower than what they measure your speed to be.


EDIT:
"Jon", you have two, very contradictory statements there, only one of which is (and can be) correct.
You said,
"Scientists have shown mathematically that it is impossible to travel faster than the speed of light. We can accelerate particles faster than the speed of light though."

It is impossible for anything with mass (this includes you, me, spaceships, electrons, ....anything with mass) to travel at, or faster than, the speed of light.

Answer 2

When we say the speed of light we mean the speed of light in a vacuum, which is the fastest that light etc can travel.
if you were travelling faster than the speed of light, you could not see where you were going, because you would get their first, before you saw it.
It is not proven that faster than light speed would be impossible. We just cannot see how it could be possible, a very different thing.
What would happen to mass makes the whole thing seem very unlikely.
Physicists have postulated mass-less particles called tachyons that ALWAYS travel faster than the speed of light.

Answer 3

Scientists have shown mathematically that it is impossible to travel faster than the speed of light. We can accelerate particles faster than the speed of light though. If you were to go faster than the speed of light you would travel either forwards or back in time (can't remember which). The fact that we can accelerate particles faster than the speed of light may mean that we can transmit data through time, but this view is not supported by a large number of scientists

Answer 4

If you were actually physically able to travel faster than the speed of light without your body being so damaged by the process that it caused your death, it would be because linear time no longer applied. Your passage through space would be along a curvature in the time space continuum as opposed to a linear path in which case you would only appear to be faster than the speed of light relative to the linear path. If so, it would be a good idea to see where you were going to stay on the right path....

Realistically it is more likely that your eyes would be obliterated as soon as you tried it....go on... I dare you.....

Answer 5

i have my own theory on this. If you was travellind faster than light you would be able to see because you would be travelling into the light that was there before you was supposed to be there. thus travelling back where you came from nomal speed, when you reach your destination you would be the first time traveller going back in time.

Answer 6

I think that light is unable to travel in time because it has to move from one point to another in some time, although very short becouse of its speed. If it can be posible to travel with speed of light without changing material body into something else like into energy or light then your eyes would experience a vision of conected pictures - it would be like watching a tape on a very fast previev or rather taking whole frames and giving you a flash of it. What is funny you would feel like after someone make you a photo by a camera with a flash in a dark room (you can try it yourself). You will lose a picture of what you have seen after few seconds because your eyes would be lighten like a plate of the camera and your brain will work on it as long as he can remember the details. If you travel in a speed of light You will see a smeard spoil of colours untill you slow down or get to the place. As I remember some kind of a worm evolve into unit with a very fast ability to move but he always have to move by a short range runs because his slow mind cant use eyes while runing. He can hit something while his speed runs because he is blind while doing it. So he run from one point he starts to another he sees and then stops before he see third point and make a decision to get there using memory and time sense. Dont try it yourself you can hurt yourself, others, and crash anything you can encounter runing blinded.

Answer 7

If current theories are correct then it is impossible to travel faster than the speed of light. However, if you were able to do so you would indeed be able to see where you are going.

However, you would not be able to see where you have been as the light reflected from objects behind you would not be able to catch up with you. :)

Answer 8

OK, I'm gonna play with a little bit of humour here. If I could travel at the speed of light, I sure hope I could see where I was going. Man, that would suck running into something at that speed! LOL

Answer 9

I tend to think that if light speed was possible then you would probably be travelling in a space craft that has a good auto pilot so you wouldn't have to steer it. But if you think about it every thing emits light so if you could travel towards something faster than light you wouldn't see it.So you could hit it before you could see it.

Answer 10

you cannot travel faster than the speed of light so no you could not