If a car is traveling with its headlights on, going at the speed of light, would you see the headlights?
2006-10-14 14:18:03 · 4 answers · asked by LG 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
If the lights were turned on before the car attains the speed of light, then probably. If the lights are turned on at the exact moment the car attains the speed of light, then it would always keep up with the light, and you would not see the light.
2006-10-14 14:20:39 · answer #1 · answered by icez 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋
No, for a bunch of different reasons.
The most obvious is that headlights have mass and to accelerate mass to
the speed of light requires an infinite amount of energy. "Infinite" means that
there would be no other energy, including photons being emitted from the
headlights, or the energy that makes up the mass of your eyeballs.
Secondly, even accepting that you might somehow get your headlights
going really really fast, the sum total of their speed and anything being
emitted by them must not exceed the speed of light. Since they are
already going the speed of light, that means that the light they emit
is not moving relative to the perceiver, any faster than the headlights.
Consequently, the light would arrive at the same time as the headlights
did. Due to the time dilation surrounding the asymptotic increase in mass,
however, that would NEVER happen. It would always be "about to happen."
2006-10-14 21:19:47 · answer #2 · answered by Elana 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
you would see them at the same time, here is an example your friend is in a car, your friend and the car are traveling at the same speed right? would you see the car before you saw the friend or the friend before the car?
-This is all hypothetical, you couldn't see anything going the speed of light, because its traveling through TIME. an anyways why would you need headlights?
2006-10-14 21:22:39 · answer #3 · answered by sur2124 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Hi. Yes, and the light would go past you at the speed of light.
2006-10-14 21:19:37 · answer #4 · answered by Cirric 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋