Why is it that a person travelling 1/2 the speed of light still sees light pass him at its normal speed?

Answer 1

To answer your question directly. The reason you will measure the speed of light at its universal constant c is that to measure it you need to use rulers and clocks to measure distance and time. At higher and higher speeds your rulers will compress and your clock ticks will lengthen such that the speed of light will always measure to the same value. You may observe events differently from observers moving different speeds than you but everyone will measure the speed of light to have the same value - c.

Your normal experience says that as you move faster your relative speed with other objects reduces. For example you can driving down the freeway at 80 miles per hour, and cars going the same speed as you will appear to be stopped - constant distance - relative to you. Hence how the highway patrol clocks your speed and pulls you over.

The point is you know you are going fast because you see the country side swooshing by. The country side becomes your absolute reference for measuring your speed. Newton thought that there existed an absolute reference point in the Universe of which all things could be measured (Leibniz took a more relativistic attitude).

For all intensive purposes our car could be moving thru the universe at 1/2 the speed of light right now if we included movement of the earth around the Sun, the Sun movement in the Milky Way, the movement of our galaxy relative to the other galaxies and yadda yadda. Einstein refuted this concept of absolute reference point in absolute space and instead moved to a relative reference point that happens to be moving at the speed of light. As a result the combination of Space-Time is now the absolute space in which all things are measured and it always changes with speed - via Loentz transformations [1] - to keep the speed of light constant in all frames of reference.

Answer 2

The same reason that a person travelling at 99.99999% of the speed of light would see light pass by at the speed of light.

It'll take about 3 or 4 years of undergraduate math and physics before it makes any sense. But that's just the way it is.


Doug

Answer 3

No one can give you an answer as to why this happens. It is a fundamental property of nature. Thats the way nature works. You are basically asking why is nature the way it is. One can't answer such questions with any conviction. One can only speculate.

Having said that, we know that the speed of light is invariant because it was experimentaly demonstrated by Michelson and Morley. And even they did not expect to get that result !It had perviously been predicted by Maxwell. But since that went against common sense, Physicists got around it by hypothesising Ether. Not until it was experimentally demonstrated did Scientists really accept it. Which is the way it should be in Science.

Speed = Distance travelled / Time taken.
Perviously it was though that only Speed and Distance travelled varies from one observers to another in different frames of reference and Time was thought to be invarient among them. But now, since speed is invariant, we have to regard Time as varying.
And this laid the foundation for the Theory of Relativity by Einstein.

Answer 4

You advice became incorrect about all power having mass. Radiation, or gentle waves contain no mass. some human beings argue that it has an 'useful mass' given through countless the E=hf (engery=plank's consistent situations the frequency), yet this is nevertheless debated. Reguardless, gentle has no mass, and in view that of this it may holiday @ the speed of sunshine c. you're most suitable about accelerating a partlice in the direction of the speed of sunshine will require countless volume of power. when you're extremely intrested seem @ Lorentz adjustments, and also you'll see the extremely ordinary why something with mass can not attain the speed of sunshine.

Answer 5

without any instrument to measure with your not gonna be able to tell how much faster light is than you. take this idea into consideration.

your on a beach and your looking out into the ocean. a boat is going 60 m/s right to left of your eyesight. then another boat which is going 260 m/s travels the same direction as the 1st boat. according the first boat, the second boat is going 200 m/s, but to the first boat it appears as if the second boat is going 260 m/s. its called the theory of relativity. i'd look into it.

after an object going faster than you reaches a certain speed you can't judge its speed by your eyesight becuase its speed relative to yours is too great a difference.

Answer 6

Various observations of celestial objects were made and many experiments were conducted to measure the speed of light.

All have confirmed that the speed of light is not affectred by the motion of the observers.

Since light needs no material medium for its prpagation, the speed of light is not affected by the speed of the material.

It is the reason that the length, time and mass is different for different observers going with different speeds.

Answer 7

He wont be seeing the light pass at the speed of light for the following reasons. It was an assumption made for speeds much less than speed of light. At 50% of the speed of light the theory is not valid. Hence he will not be seeing the light at its max speed of light.

Answer 8

That's one of the implication of Einstein's mechanics. The theory states that in any frame of reference, the speed of light is the same. And that applies to your traveler, also -- in the frame of reference moving with him, light must go at its normal speed. Of course, it must also go at its normal speed with respect to the "stationary" observer as well; the mathematics in Einstein's mechanics makes all of this work, notwithstanding its counterintuitive nature.

Answer 9

why?

nobody knows why?

why is the province of religion
science can only tell us what and how

the fact that light in a vacuum travels at the same speed relative to any reference point is one of the tenet's of the theory of relativity

so far, all tests have verified that light does in fact, behave that way

is that not way cool

Answer 10

Because the speed of light is constant from any given refrence point.