Whilst travelling at the speed of light in your car at night, what happens when you hit the lights?

Question

We are assuming the speed of light is 186,000 miles per second approx and we are driving a really fast car...

Answer 1

First of all, your car could not travel at the speed of light, c. (c is aproximately 300,000 km/sec). So lets assume you travel just a smidgen slower than c; lets say 1mm/sec slower than c. Is that OK?
Now to your question:
According to Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, the speed of light is c in any frame of reference (and that is THE basic assumption of the theory of relativity). Therefore, the light travels at speed c relative to you, and will illuminate the road in front of you.

Answer 2

Any one that says the road will not be lite up in front of you doesn't know what he is talking about. It is true that it would take an infinite amount of energy for your car to reach the speed of light. Assumming you had that (and no one does), the light would still travel from your headlights at the speed of light relative to your car. (i.e. It would be no different for the driver if he where driving at 55 mph or the speed of light)

Answer 3

No, you would possibly want to not be able to work out the line up ahead. in the start, the lighting fixtures fixtures does not even turn on. good once you hit the knob to coach the lighting fixtures fixtures on, an illustration is dispensed on the speed of light to the headlights. once you're motor vehicle is vacationing on the speed of light, this signal will under no circumstances attain the headlights. The signal will be stuck interior the knob and that's going to under no circumstances attain the headlamp. Now enable's say that by some ability you've been waiting to coach your lighting fixtures fixtures on. The photons would basically develop in the front of your motor vehicle and they'd under no circumstances go away the headlamps, because you're vacationing on the speed of light the easy answer is that count number won't be able to shuttle on the speed of light. you're motor vehicle would under no circumstances attain the speed of light. the superb you need to get is ninety 9.9999999999....% the speed of light.

Answer 4

but even with your car still in the garage and the engine switched off, you already ARE travelling at the speed of light! (-- or a goodly fraction of the speed of light ---), we all are! the entire solar system is! RELATIVE that is to some far distant galaxy on the other side of the universe!

the question you should perhaps be asking is, if you spied a motor car in outer space whizzing past the earth at a relative velocity close to the speed of light, what would YOU see if the driver decided to turn on his lights? because the driver of that car wouldn't notice anything at all out of the ordinary.

Answer 5

They glow. Obviously, since you are traveling at the speed of light, the light rays can't go faster and travel ahead of your car.

This is somewhat similiar to the question posed about "looking back in time" when you look at a star, because you are seeing the light that it emitted eons ago.

the lights would glow because the filament would be lit. the light would not shine outward, because you would be going as fast as the speed of light. but you would see the light- you're confusing the speed of light with the speed of sight.
i use this example sometimes- true when you look at a star you are seeing the light from long ago- BUT if there were a GIANT MAN big enough to see from earth (impossible yes i know), and he raised his arm- you would see THAT ACTION at real time. get it?

Answer 6

The faster you go, the slower time moves. So, if you're travelling at the speed of light, it will take an infinite amount of time for your hand to move to the light switch - at least relative to the rest of the world. Since you're in the same reference frame as the car, you won't notice any difference (for one thing, it would take an infinite amount of time to form the thought to hit the lights).

Try going almost the speed of light. It avoids the obvious conflicts that are only resolved by the fact that it's impossible to go the speed of light or faster.

Answer 7

First, your headlights will blow up due to the accumulation of photons in the headlight enclosure.
Next, you will begin to see the photons pushing up and out from the front of the car as they continue to pile up in front of you.

Eventually, the mass of photons will get so great that they will eventually compress the front of your car until the front of the car is even with the back (I would suggest turning off the lights before this happens).

In other words, I have no idea but it's fun to think about questions like these.

Answer 8

It's just not that simple!!!

You have to ask what happens when traveling close to the speed of light.

And (for you the driver) you just don't notice anything (accept that bad shimmy in the right front wheel)

It's the guy on the side of the road who might notice something. And you go whizzing by so fast he can't see a thing!!!

Look up "red shift"

Answer 9

You can´t catch your lights because they will go at the speed of light + your speed (is like a bullet comming from a jet fighter: Jet fighters are faster than bullets, but they never can catch their own bullets)

Answer 10

it is very fake asumption because no particle can move with the speed of light as it contradicts a postulate of theory of relativity.
moreover speed of light in vaccum is a constant so it is indepemdent of the frame of refrence so u cud see it the same way as u see it normally
but as urself r movin with speed of light when u switch them on so ur relative speed will be 0 so although the light will be switched on but for u the road will still appear to be dark