if your flying the space shuttle at the speed of light?

Question

and you turn on your headlights. do they do anything?

Answer 1

Velocity addition under special relativity is a fascinating topic. Basically, from within your time dilated reference frame within the shuttle moving at the speed of light, the headlights will appear to shine light forward at the speed of light relative to yourself. However, in actuality, the light from the headlights moves only at the speed of light relative to an outside observer. Use the velocity addition formula in my source to see that c + c = c, where c is the speed of light.

Answer 2

Actually, you would have died long ago, because the Shuttle is not designed to take the stresses associated with warp speed.

The problem here is with points of reference. If you were in the shuttle approaching light speed and "turned on the headlights", you would still see them moving away from you at the speed of light -- 3E08 meters per second.

And somebody outside the shuttle would see you moving near the speed of light, and the headlight beam speeding away at the speed of light.

Answer 3

Since time stops completely at the speed of light, you would be frozen in time, unable to turn on lights or do anything else. But suppose you are frozen but not frozen. Suppose that you can do things in zero time. You look at the light from your headlight at 0 seconds after you turn it on. It has gone zero distance. Normally you could wait one second and then see how far the light had gone and calculate its speed as distance over time, miles per second. But since time has stopped for you, your clock always shows zero seconds have passed. And during those zero seconds, the light has gone zero distance. So your measured speed is 0/0. That is an undefined number. Not zero and not infinite, just undefined. Meanwhile, a stationery observer watching you fly by sees the light from your headlight just keeping pace with you, never leaving the lamp, as you fly past.

Answer 4

Hello Steve,
First, there's nothing wrong with your grammar; and second, this is a good question.
Now... Remember, you are flying a machine that was built by the lowest bidder! Assuming it could survive the stresses, (and let your landing lights serve as headlights,) the lights would come on. That light would be traveling at 'c', the speed of light. The person who said that light was a wave like sound is only half informed. Light has both wave and particle characteristics. Einstein likened it to a 'quantum packet' of energy traveling on each crest of the wave. In light we speak of 'red-shifting', and 'blue-shifting' instead of 'Doppler', (which is correct for sound.)
The only silly question is the one not asked!
Butch

Answer 5

Yes because the light from your headlight will be traviling your speed plus the speed of light. Hypothetically that is.

Answer 6

No, they wouldn't. The space shuttle would disentigrate at that speed. They can go above the speed of sound but not light. That is if you were applying this question to the real world.

However, hypothetically speaking, yes, they would still function. They wouldn't be that effective, but they would still work. That is assuming that electricity continues to flow to the lights.

Answer 7

Well, first of all, your space shuttle imploded long before you got to the speed of light.
Secondly, they do turn on, but no one would be able to observe them turning on, since the speed they travel to anyone's eye would be faster than the speed of light.

Answer 8

Yes, the go on and the light will travel two times the speed of light, theoreticly. Light is made up of waves just like sound, and if you have ever stood next to a train track as the train is coming toward you, blowing its' horn, you will notice the pitch is higher as it is coming towards you and then the pitch drops as it goes by you. This is the Doppler effect, and this applies to all forms of wave energy, ie sound, light, etc. Try it and let me know what happens to the light.

Answer 9

If they did, no. The space ship would be going so fast, you would not be able to see them as you went by. Besides, If you even reached the speed of light, you actually would be able to travel through time! However, at the same time, you would be disinigrated from the force of the speed...so its lose lose either way. Sorry D:

Answer 10

relative to you, they travel at the normal speed, to observers, you are just light and energy yourself, and you would be appearing to be not moving, you would seem like a frozen picture going too fast to see.
E=mc(squared), the faster you go, the more you turn into light, a ton of light for a little mass.