2007-01-05 05:41:20 · 17 answers · asked by Smiley 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
The correct answer here is that the headlights will work as normal if we modify the question to ask what they will do if we are moving infinitesimally close to the speed of light. Since it is not physically possible to accelerate an object with mass to exactly the speed of light, let us instead say that we accelerate ourselves to 99.9999% of the speed of light, or however close to it we would like. So now we turn our headlights on. What happens? Well, the special theory of relativity states that the speed of light is invariant in any reference frame. What this means is that no matter what speed I am travelling, I will still see light pass me at the same speed, approximately 3x10^8 meters per second. Hence the light will leave the headlight at the same speed it normally does, which is to say that it will function normally. Although this seems like a paradox, it is in fact the basis for Einstein's result that the rate of time itself is in fact dependent on velocity.
As an observer approaches the speed of light, his or personal time slows down, an effect known as time dilation. In other words, two events that appear to occur in an intertial reference frame 1 minute apart for an observer in that reference frame would seem to occur much closer together in time for someone moving quickly with respect to that reference from. As an example, someone on earth could age years in the time it would take someone on a spaceship moving close to the speed of light to age a day. The ratio of the two time rates is known as the Lorentz factor, which is 1/sqrt(1-v^2/c^2) where v is velocity and c is the speed of light.
The conclusion of all of this is that due to the invariance of the speed of light, the light from the headlights will leave the headlights just as quickly with respect to me as they otherwise would if I was travelling infinitesimally close to the speed of light.
2007-01-05 09:12:01 · answer #1 · answered by locke9k 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Like a few have said before, you can't travel the speed of light, but if you did you wouldn't be able to turn on the headlights on because at the speed of light Time Stops. You'd be frozen in time.
Light will travel at the same speed relative to a moving object and a stationary object. How is this possible? Because the time in each reference frame changes such that this is always the case. Hence the term --- the speed of light is constant.
2007-01-05 10:23:35 · answer #2 · answered by rokiko 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋
There is no answer to this question. Teachers ask it as a way of determining the conceptual understanding of students RE: relativity theory.
A student with a very poor understanding will say that nothing happens because the car is moving at the speed of light too, or that the light is now moving at twice the speed of light.
A student with a minimal understanding will say that the light moves at the speed C for both the observer in the car and the rest frame observer.
A student who conceptually understands the theory of relativity will refuse to give an answer. This is because the theory of relativity holds that no masseous (ie, observation) frame can ever go the speed of light... in fact, nothing can be accelerated to the speed of light at all. To accelerate to the speed of light is to be outside the realm of the laws of physics, and if you're outside the laws of physics then no honest and knowledgable person can give you a meaningful answer (It's kind of like asking someone to describe what heaven specifically would look like, no one has experienced being there, so no one can say anything about it)
Ergo, the correct answer is "there is no answer"
2007-01-05 08:37:01 · answer #3 · answered by promethius9594 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
sure, there's a probability of a convention to commute on the cost of sunshine yet, that practice has not yet been engineered. Hypothetically talking, if a convention became vacationing quicker than the cost of sunshine on a depressing night and the headlights have been grew to become on, the railroad music might nevertheless be dark, only as though the lights have been off because of the fact with the aid of the time gentle reaches a definite factor in front of the practice, the practice might have already exceeded that factor because of the fact it incredibly is vacationing quicker than gentle.
2016-10-30 02:09:59 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
IF (and that's a big if) you could travel at the speed of light, the headlights would do nothing. You would be moving as fast as they were moving. Much like how a plane can pass it's sound wave. Light is just a different type of wave, but moving much faster.
2007-01-05 05:45:12 · answer #5 · answered by stevenhendon 4 · 1⤊ 2⤋
The headlights will turn on !!
Also because the point of reference for those lights happens to be your craft therefore they will illuminate the path in front of you, but you will be moving too fast to see the effect.
Per relativity, everything is relative to your position and each instance can be frozen in time to see the net effect of any incident. Therefore frozen in that time frame you would be turning on the headlights, however in motion because you are travelling so fast the net effect of "increased visibility" will not happen.
2007-01-05 05:51:43 · answer #6 · answered by bostoncity_guy 2 · 1⤊ 2⤋
Nothing. You are comparing two separate sources of light one of which is traveling at the speed of light-the light from the headlights which are photons and the vehicle which is also traveling at the speed of light. They aren't accumulative. In other words light doesn't "feel" the effects of being accelerated by the car because it is massless. It cannot be any speed but the speed of light. Also consider momentum is mass x velocity. Light has no momentum because it has no mass.
2007-01-05 05:44:26 · answer #7 · answered by mojo2093@sbcglobal.net 5 · 1⤊ 3⤋
Well if your an airplane and you break the sound barrier a phenonena occurs that produces a big loud kaboom. If you travel faster than the speed of light then no light would be visible.
2007-01-05 05:48:10 · answer #8 · answered by pegasis 5 · 1⤊ 2⤋
Nothing.
In order to illuminate anything the photons travel at the speed of light and then reflect off of something or refract through something.
Since you are already going at the speed of light, the photons cannot go any faster.
tc
2007-01-05 05:45:24 · answer #9 · answered by timc_fla 5 · 1⤊ 2⤋
There will be no difference. The light will not stream out in front of you. The only thing that will ever be in front of you are objects which are already in front of you that you are traveling towards. Nothing that is behind you or at the same level will ever be in front of you.
2007-01-05 05:48:34 · answer #10 · answered by Larry H 3 · 1⤊ 2⤋