speed of light

[froggy]

so ur in ur microbus going that the speed of light.
and u turn on ur headlight. what happens?

[phunkyphil]

..you spark another one. you reach a wormhole and get sucked into a distant planet made entirely of marijuana. you put on some marley..



..your eyes turn red.

[IGotTheCottons]

/\/\/\/\/\~~~ what he said!!!!!

[wildc@rd]

If you are traveling in a spacecraft at light speed and turn on a light, you will still be able to see the light because although the light source is in a fixed position in relation to your own position within the craft, the light source is still moving at the same relativistic speed (light speed).

[nucan]

i dont think so.... that only works with flies inside of vans. not with light. im thinking it would never appear to be on. or there would be a huge flash of light anyways so u couldnt see it. (kinda like the sonic boom from speed of sound.

[deadhead]

uh you would turn to energy and BE light.

[wildc@rd]

Your analolgy in reference to the fly in the van is interesting. The same applies to a person travelling on a jumbo jet airplane. Imagine, if you will... a 747 travelling at approx 500 miles per hour over the Atlantic Ocean. Also imagine, that you are sitting in the last row of seats at the back and the toilets are twenty feet in front of you. You decide that your bladder is reaching bursting point and that you need to visit the toilet. As you begin to walk up the isle, you realise that the plane you are walking in is tralling at 500 miles per hour. Your walking speed is roughly 2 miles per hour in those cramped conditions. So, thechnically, you are now the fastest moving man in the world.... you can walk at 502 miles per hour.... correct...... nope. You are still walking at 2 miles per hour. It's the same with light... all you have to do is think about it. The light is still travelling at light speed, no matter it's surroundings. That's the thing with light speed. It can't go faster and it can't go slower (that's not strictly true but that's another ball of wool).....

[budburner]

Ah yes... relativity...

Ok, let's say we are on a most gigantic cosmic "stationary" runway and the ship cruises past at the speed of light (relatively to us on thid cosmic runway of course).

Relative to the cosmic runway, it seems there'd be a "luminescant boom" (like the new invention?)

Relative to the ship.... the headlights would come on as normal.

(as if we can somehow travel that fast and still be normal)

So... I believe nucan and wilds@rd are both right. It's just a matter of which point of view you're contemplating.

[budburner]

Or would we just call it "luminescant flash"

[tednugent]

dead head is right

you wouldn't even be able to turn on the lights because you would be energy, with no will of your own

[wildc@rd]

What if there is something to be said about that idea. It would certainly lend credence to the belief that although intelligent life exists (or existed) on other worlds within our universe, we are unable to make contact due to the immense differences in our abilities to perceive existance. It certainly would be a quandry... the only way in which to travel throughtout the galaxy within humanly survivable time frames would be at light speed.... but to do so would transform our state of existance. We wouild in effect no longer be physically or mentally able to exist within the constraints of the physical world as we know it.

[budburner]

Epiphany time...


Now there's a thought!

Good call tednugent and deadhead.

Very intriguing.

I don't know, though.... that much matter turning into pure energy would be gigantically titanic. It would be some flash!

And... all they'd have to do to turn back into matter is slow down? I dunno.....

I don't put much merit in my luminescent flash idea either... so don't feel bad. lol

And since "speed" is a relativistic concept.......... who's to say when it's actually been reached?

From the point of view of those about 5 or so billion light years away from us we are the ones moving at near light speed (away from them). They appear to be doing the same way out there from our point of view.

So..... then we are all energy already.

**throwing lightening bolts from my fingertips**

It’ll be so cool when we figure out warp speed… if it’s even possible. (Hmmm would warp speed turn you into anti-matter en route?)

[Digit]

hats of to bud burner and especially wildc@rd. When it comes to these sort of questions we will always fall back to relativity... because relativity is more relative than anything else!

Would light act in the same way as a person going to the toilet on a jet?

for this i guess it would require a greater understanding of how light behaves on a sub-atomic scale (is it more waves or traveling particles?). It's not qute the same as for sound. But asuming it did have a similar relativity to sound, then of course we would see the light in the cockpit... much the same as we HEAR co-pilots in a jet fighter or concorde. and once you realise this you understand that of course light acts in the same way! EVERYTHING IS RELATIVE, in a purely Space-Time concept.

[budburner]

Originally posted by wildc@rd
the only way in which to travel throughtout the galaxy within humanly survivable time frames would be at light speed....

IMO it would almost certainly have to be faster than light speed. But perhaps I'm just too much of a trekkie.

Light, on a cosmic scale, ain't really that fast either.

Very enlightening posts though.

[tednugent]

light speed, according to einstien is impossible for us, even if it is, the time it would take to get to somehabitableworlds yet to be found,even traveling at light speed, would exceed the human lifespan. The way for us to go is fold-space, altering the space-time continium, folding it so that two spots, very distant along the continium, to the point that they are virtually touching eacch other--though the energy and scientific know-how to do this are incomprehenseble to me.