Basically, would we be able to see the lights before the car, like we normally do on the road, or would it all go too fast?
2006-11-08 15:42:17 · 7 answers · asked by Jessica Q 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
Well the frame of refference for the driver will have the headlights working normally. Some one observing will not see light coming from the car because of time dilation. The arrival of light at any point from the head lights will become simultaeneous with the arrival of the car.
possibly light reflecting of the road would appear to be along side the car rather than in front. However the car will tend to be infinitely short!
In other words the back end of the car becomes simultaeneous with the arrival of the front!
2006-11-08 17:24:02 · answer #1 · answered by slatibartfast 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
This is a tricky question. Right now there are no good theories for how things will behave if the car travels as fast or faster then light. As you begin to travel at appreciable speeds ( half the speed of light, three quarters, etc) a whole slew of interesting things happen.
First of all, the speed of light is the same regardless of how you are measuring it. Let me explain this a little more, imagine you're driving in a car at 55mph and your friend throws a baseball from the car, in the direction the car is travelling, and he releases it at 90mph faster then hte car is moving. If you and your friend measured the speed, you would see 90mph, but if someone standing on the side of the road measured the balls speed, it would read 90+55=145mph. This doesnt hold true for light, both you and your friend would measure it to be roughly 300,000,000m/s, regardless of how fast you were driving (up until the speed of light). This happens because your perception of time slows down while travelling at a higher speed. So even though you are traveling at half the speed of light, time is slower for you, so by the time a second has passed for you, the light is now 300,000,000 meters away from you. Your friend, who is holding still, experiences time more quickly, and in the second, sees the light travel exactly 300,000,000 meters.
These equations break down as you hit the speed of light, because time is at a standstill for the people moving (theoretically).
2006-11-08 23:50:30 · answer #2 · answered by merlin692 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I will answer your question from two assumptions. 1 the car is driving towards you.
In this case you would neither see the car nor the headlights. What hits our retina is light reflected from the objects we see. In this case, light would have to travel faster than light for you to see the incoming car traveling at the speed of light. The same applies to the light from the head lights.
Two. The car driving away from you. From your perspective, the light would be traveling to you a the normal speed of light. So you would in theory see it due to the pace of time with respect to you.
2006-11-09 00:04:02 · answer #3 · answered by St Lusakan 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No, as that would require light to travel faster than light. It's the same with an airplane traveling faster that sound; if it had a horn, you wouldn't be able to hear it before the airplane got there as sound can't travel faster than the speed of sound.
2006-11-08 23:51:35 · answer #4 · answered by Deirdre H 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
the question is flawed, a car traveling at the speed of light would be light itself. it requires infinite acceleration to move a mass from any starting velocity less that the speed of light to the speed of light, c.
2006-11-09 00:14:13 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
No, light can't travel faster. That's one reason why faster than light travel will never happen. We can't see where we are going.
2006-11-08 23:48:39 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
yes we can
2006-11-08 23:45:27 · answer #7 · answered by Ajay 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋