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Hang on tight : Speed of LIGHT!

Outlaw71 said:
Something else I was wondering... if you were driving along at night, at the speed of light with your headlights on... would you be able to see where you were going?
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If you were travelling at the speed of light you would be "frozen" as time dilation would reach 100%. The light from the headlights would never move forward.
From your point of view time would be normal. But who can say, as 100% the speed of light means 100% time dilation, and nothing can travel at light speed. It's one of those fallacious questions really.

If you were travelling at 99.99 % the speed of light then, yes, you could see in front of yourself. The light would move forward from the headlights at normal speed (from YOUR point of view), but only at 0.01 the speed of light from an outside observer's POV.

got it? It's all relative ;)
 
dan330 said:
dude!!!
leave my drunken uncle out of this!
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1268464759575.jpg
 
Outlaw71 said:
Something else I was wondering... if you were driving along at night, at the speed of light with your headlights on... would you be able to see where you were going?
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What I think you are asking is... would the light from your vehicle be traveling at faster than the speed of light.

The answer is... no.

What would happen is, theoretically, your mass would expand until it consumed all free space in the universe... infinite mass....

That being said... let's address the question that I think you are asking...


If you are traveling on a ship at 99% of the speed of light and shine a flashlight in the direction that the ship is traveling... is that light traveling faster than the speed of light.

No. It will be traveling at the speed of light from Your perspective, and from the perspective of observers outside the ship. How is that possible? Time dilation. One year at 99% of the speed of light would take approximately 1300 years relative to everyone else...

What this means is... while it may actually take the light years to light up the front of the ship because of your speed... it will seem instantaneous, because light is unaffected by time dilation (it doesn't have mass).



I hope that I guessed what you wanted to know, and cleared it up for you.
 
fine... where can I pick up a car.. that can keep me within the law?

dont want to be the old granny.. in the right lane.. doing less than 1mil mi per hr








(that sounded funnier in my head) :P
 
EarlyMon said:
I've got one parked in the driveway doing just under 500,000 mph right now thanks to galactic rotation - make me an offer.
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That's what always bothered me about time travel movies. Wouldn't movement through space be necessary?

The universe is expanding, the earth is revolving around the sun and rotating, etc, etc, blah blah... if one travelled through time, wouldn't he or she need to be in the exact position in space where the destination is supposed to be in either the past or future?

Or should I just get a delorean and weld some garbage cans on the back?
 
EarlyMon said:
That is all exactly why you don't violate spacetime with a car, you do it with a phone booth - an old Police Call Box to be exact.
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Or a big tunnel in a secret government facility.

On a side note, my Dodge diesel truck goes 24,900 mps or so according to my GPS! It will tell me "traffic ahead in 24,901 miles" and right after that it will tell me "traffic ahead in 1 mile"! Diesels rule.
 
Actually, you can do it with a car, a 1973 Oldsmobile to be exact. But it also requires a tree, chainsaw, shotgun and spooky Book of the Dead stuff.
 
EarlyMon said:
Or a wonderful singing voice and a bump on the head.
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Well, yeah. :D

Let's work this out.. bump on head = lights before eyes, light travels at the speed of light, therefor the head achieves infinite mass as it succeeds in catching up and emits a celebratory, high pitched "fat lady" note.

Perfect.
 
Outlaw71 said:
My only hope is that they have one of those signs... you know the one they place a little ways before a stop sign, warning you that there is indeed a stop sign up ahead so you can prepare yourself. I'd hate to have to slam on the brakes whilst traveling a few hundred thousand miles per hour!
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all this talk reminds me of spaceballs

Ludicous speed GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuFAFPjbdy4
 
SamuraiBigEd said:
Actually, you can do it with a car, a 1973 Oldsmobile to be exact. But it also requires a tree, chainsaw, shotgun and spooky Book of the Dead stuff.
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...but you must say the words e x a c t l y

Clatto Verata N... Necktie... Neckturn... Nickel... It's an "N" word, it's definitely an "N" word! Clatto... Verata... N-

[coughs]

Okay... that's it!
 
the quality and IQ of this forum has dropped ...



:P
is it bad.. that i get these jokes and references
LOL
 
EarlyMon said:
So the first reason that you can't go faster than the speed of light is because you can't go slower than the speed of light. You're going to go at that speed through spacetime, because it's a conversion factor.

This is why for all speeds below c, no matter how much or howlittle below c, the speed of light will always measure at about 186,282 miles / second. Just like 2.54 cm/inch is always true no matter how fast you go.

Why can't you travel at the speed of light?
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Any thoughts on tachyons? They are particles that are supposedly always travelling faster than the speed of light. The less energy such a particle has, the faster it moves. It requires energy to slow it down, but unlike sublight particles, it is always travelling faster than the speed of light and cannot be slowed down to the speed of light or slower.
 
EarlyMon said:
That is all exactly why you don't violate spacetime with a car, you do it with a phone booth - an old Police Call Box to be exact.
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Or a time agency vortex manipulator... those are handy, and far more portable than a blue police call box...
 
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