Head Lights: Newsletter Challenge (03/03/09)

I am no expert on the subject but I don't think anyone mentioned the theory that time slows down for any object as it approaches the speed of light. What that means to me is that as the car approaches the speed of light time slows down so that to an outside observer (not traveling at the speed of light) the car would appear to be catching up to its own head lights (but never actually reaching it as time stops at the speed of light). To the observer in the car the light from his/her headlights would still appear to be travelling at 186,000 miles/sec because time has slowed down for them by the same ratio as they have increased speed. This may be an over simplistic view but it's the only way my simple mind can imagine it.

And what is this effect to the bigbang?

There is (I highly doubt) anything that actually states that time stops at the speed of light, or goes backwards when you pass that speed, its just a theory that cannot yet be proven, unless you have done it, and can give me next weeks horse racing results, then ;o)

So if you call me tomorrow - i'm from the day before yesterday!

And if you call me yesterday - i'm from today?

But if you call me today - i'm from today?

Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, after a careful review of all the data collected now from what must be the greatest minds in the world (now THERE'S a scary thought) I've concluded the only way to really determine the correct answer is empirically ...

hmmm ...

May I borrow your car?

(I'll be back in a FLASH)

I'm gonna get serious here for a bit. Someone asked for a new thread related to this whole discussion. There is some good thinking going on here. But it all begins with what I believe is a flawed assumption. To wit: That E=MC2 is an absolute, that as an object reaches C, mass becomes infinate. NOT ! What happens is that the mass remains the same, it is volume that becomes infinate. I am not a mathematcian. I am a Mystic. You who look for "Worm Holes" would do better imagining the shock wave as a jet exceeds the speed of sound in atmosphere. The wave is almost perpendicular to the direction of the jet. Any object breaking the VoL barrier will acheive infinate volume in the same way, therebuy occupying the total volume of the universe while the mass remains the same. The trick is to maintain coherence while this is happening, and then to coalesce at the desired location at the same time. For this you would need a short course in Celestial Harmonics, which has been studied for the last 3 or 4 thousand years, I figure. Now we just need to put existing instrumentation together, and make Harmonics part of the research platform as it pertains to FTL travel, Anti-gravity, even possibly anti inertia. Plus some really neet new toys.

If man can dream it, man can make it real.

I'm still wearing my Kevlar/Nomex shorts

You forgot "Bistro-maths" for the ability to travel to any place instantaneously .

You've got to stop to get into the car and turn the headlight on. By the time you've got out, accelarated to c, the headlight beam has got too much of a start on you. Even if you don't stop when switching the lights on, your arm will get ripped off and you'll bleed to death.

The answer is no. You'd have to exceed 1.5x the speed of light to begin to overtake the light from your headlights. If you're on a train traveling half the speed of light, and you shoot a bullet towards the front of the train, the bullet is travelling at it's normal speed PLUS the speed of the train. Headlamp light is comparable to the bullet in this example.

No, unless the light reflects off the walls of the wormhole you are travelling in. That is, if the light could travel faster than itself and escape the bulb.

When the headlights are turned on would they consume the energy required to maintain light speed and slow you down?

No, because you are not traveling faster than the light. You would be the same distance now or 100 years from now.

If the lights were turned on, THEN the vehicle acquired speed of light status it would not catch thee "already had a heard start source" but would maintain that distance at light speed, whatever that time frame was.

No. Einstein was right (remember he split the atom so we could have head... in our beer). The speed of light is a constant. The light that you are trying to catch up to will dissipate exponentially and you will end up travelling in the dark. That is, until the photons that are piling up in your headlight consume you and you actually become the light that you are chasing. Now, about that beer...

The only thing we know that is constant is our wifes moods before her monthly time.

Light Speed 186,000 MPS except when bent through a Prism.

My answer is no. i have no science to back me up exept a fly. A fly can not fly at 60 mph but in a car going 60 mph it can. It really is not moving at this speed, but the car is. It would have to be moving at the rate of speed of the car plus ats own speed. So I say that the head light, being part of the car, would be traveling at the same rate as the car. So therefore the light comming out if the headlight woulld also be traveling at the same speed of the car and also its own speed. Thank you.

No, At no point will you be able to exceed the speed of light in order to 'catch up' If however the light was going though on medium and you another then maybe you could.

Actually, no (i.e., ... in the sense that the question was being asked!). But actually (moreover) the challenge is a linguistics question moreso than a physics question.

Guesticulator

Hi Fellas,

if you are traveling in a car at 1/2 light speed your car would be destroyed if there was anything in front of you. Good thing you turned the headlights on before you accelerated to the speed of light. Your starting speed is not relevant because your car is at rest.(traveling at half the speed of light) Somehow you have already pushed it from somewhere, "traveling", in relation to some starting point. You can't see light that is projected forward in front of you. With nothing in front of you, how excatcly woud you see the light anyway. You can only see the reflection of light. If there was something to reflect off of. If you had very bright headlights,(sun-like), and your acceleration was instantanious, you would see a reflective object that was 186000 mile ahead 2 seconds before you hit it. That is unless you had very quick reflexes and could withstand the G forces of the turn. LOL

If you could catch up to the speed of light that you generated/projected you would be a GOD. With a very cool car!

No, you will not catch up to the light from your headlight. When you turn them on you are traveling at half light speed that means that the end of the beam is traveling away from you at twice your speed. When you speed up to light speed you will then be going the same speed of the light beam which means the end of the beam will no longer be pulling away from you. It would stay the same distance from your vehicle until you either speed up or slow down.

The only way to catch up to the beam would be to speed up to a speed greater than the speed of light, in which case you would slowly start to gain on the end of the beam. (or would you just push the light beam forward if you speed up in which case you would never catch it!!)

Here's another interesting thought.

If you turn your headlights off after you reach the speed of light, (using the challenge scenario) will you ever actually see them turn off?

What a great way to conserve energy!!

How silly of us all. Even without the relativistic time and space dilation that would occur, if this scenario were possible. You cannot catch something moving at the same speed as you are. Great, can we put this silly question to bed now?

NO,

Since some day this question will be talked about in elementary school. We will surpass this question, and overtake the light.

No not in a car but in a vehicle of some type. We will develop shields to protect us, this Star Trek thought will take place in the future not ours but it will.

We think so small don't we.

No. The disctance will be maintained.

Vivekanand Sharma.

+17809080836.

No, since the light being emitted from the vehicle is being caused by the eminent destruction of the vehicle.

We are assuming that nothing can surpass the speed of light. But in truth nothing known can even come close to it without being torn apart by friction. Even in the vacuum of space there is enough stray particals and dust to rip a vihicle to shreds long befor it reaches even c/2.

So, if we are to assume that we have created a vehicle that can approach C. Then we must also assume we have devised a way to protect it from all the stray particals and what not. So if the vehicle has a shield of some sort aroud it to prevent particals from entering then the shield must also prevent particals from exiting. the net result being that the light will not be able to escape from the vehicle. So there is no light to catch up with to start with.

I post without having read all of the previous posts, and Analise the issue from the standards of common sense.

No matter how fast something is traveling,(in this case light), in order to catch it you must be traveling at a speed that is faster than that which you are attempting to catch. Where this issue ("light") is concerned, if you wish to catch the beginning of the "light" then you must be traveling fast enough to over come the "light" that has a head start. """""not in your life time will you ever see this happening"""

TMF

I don't think it would be possible to catch a light beam let alone travel at half it's speed. If you could travel at the speed of light wouldn't everything be a blinding blur anyway? I don't think the photons would ever leave the headlamp assembly if the headlamp itself was travelling at light speed therefore it would be impossible to catch up. Also, if you are travelling slower than an object then accelerate to match it's speed, you cannot overcome the object, only pace it. You would need to accelerate above light speed to catch light and I am told that is not physically possible. Now, if one was to fold space and somehow get in front of the light beam emmited from the head lights ...

How many people with ADHD does it take to change a light bulb? ... ooh look, a fire truck.

first of all, there are two observations one: inside the car and one from a point outside the car. From outside the car, as the auto approaches the speed of light, its size diminishes to a therological single point mass. From inside the car everything is releativily the same. The headight as viewed from inside the vechicle still travels at the speed of light but from the stationary point observer we approach the realm of quantum mechanics. This acceleration still meets the criteria, but warps space creating a folding of the "fabric" of space, much like a single point mass of a "black hole". this was the last unsolved theorm of Einstein, I belive there is still a 1M$ bounty on the solution of this postulate.

Keep it short: In the car the speed of C, from outside observer it travels twice the distance but at the same time (space folds and warps much like taking a taught string and touching the ends together at the same instance, thus quantum mechanics). The equasion is lenghty and to this point has not been solved completely. The gravity well of a single point mass, would generate such energy as a imploded star (Black Hole) which generates huge gravitional forces it folds space and time, in theory.

when science creates a gravition control device that can control this attraction or repulsion of a gravition field then we can prove this postulate by repulsing the earth at the same time as attracting the gravitional acceleration of another star or gravitational object as a single point mass, it can be finally determined.

Increasing the speed will never reach the speed of light - it's like the sonic-speed with an propellant air plane!

No.

Where will you be heading at the speed of light? anyway the headlights on your vehicle are stationary and will continually emit light at its speed regardless of your velocity. maybe try twice the speed of light. Unless u want to leave your headlights behind in order to compete with light in darkness.

am out

maloba.

try a backward drive!

Due to the initial speed of 1/2 the speed of light, the initial light beam would outdistance your vehicle. Upon increasing your speed to the speed of light, that would prevent any future light beams from being visible by you inside the vehicle due to the matched speeds. The initial light from the headlights of your vehicle would actually fade out around you due to light diffusion and scatter before you were able to catch it. If you were able to maintain the light in a focused beam, you would catch it while travelling at the speed of light. The beam of light would be slowed down due to the friction caused by the photons in the beam of light encountering particles in the air.

Very interesting imagination question.

As per Relative velocity theory if both objects are moving with same speed the collective speed zero i mean to say they look constant to each other.Here also if we apply same theory car is moving same speed of light then both are having same speed.

As soon as emit the photon beam from the head lights car catches (covers)that and never see any thing infront.

Hence whoever driving that car can't see any light at all.

Keep walking (rocking)

driving at light speed must be like fried chickens!

This Point is Light

THE ANSWER IS NO. SINCE THE LIGHT FROM YOUR HALF SPEED HAS TRAVELLED AHEAD OF YOU WITH THE SPEED OF LIGHT AND YOU CANNOT CATCH UP WITH IT WITH THE SPEED OF LIGHT. ONE HAS TO TRAVEL FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF LIGHT TO CATCH UP.

P V SASTRY

e- mail : pv_shastry@yahoo.com

No ketxhup for Catch Up - Please!

Headlights are so others can avoid the subject vehicle, and so that the operator of said vehicle can avoid collision. At half the speed of light, neither will apply, so the lights are a waste of energy, and would slow the vehicle. How quickly can one swerve a ship at half the speed of light? A 0.001g acceleration to one side would be very costly in energy terms, and make for a very long lead time in aiming decisions. With normal reaction-powered vessels, moving from half to 99% of light speed is difficult; full light speed is not only relativistically challenging, but probably requires technology we don't understand.

Such travel should only be attempted in volumes of space known to be free of particles and dark matter, which could erraticallly slow or destroy the 'ship'. Does your engine's intake system grind up matter, and turn it into propulsion fuel? Can it do this better than a New York airliner? Who will 'sweep' this volume of space, to make it free of dust?

On the other hand, the cartoon vision of the orange beam, in front of the car, gradually pulling back into one's headlights as the driver hits the throttle a bit harder, is sort of amusing.

David Grant, P. Eng.

Manitoba Hydro

I say we use a subwoofer to help brake through this "speed of light", and some helium balloons to avoid the infinite mass. Ooops... don't tell my Calculus teacher that I referred to infinite as a tangible item. Anyway, the real question here is whether or not somebody is watching.

The speed of light to any observer always measures at c regardless of the velocity of the observer. When you travel at c/2, if you could measure the speed of the light exiting your headlights it would still measure at c. This is beacause your clock is running at c/2. As you trend toward a velocity of c, no mass can actually reach c, the infinitesimal difference between c and your velocity becomes the standard for your clock. The light from your vehicle still measures to you as c but a second to you is two weeks to the statioary observer. For the stationary observer time moves on as usual and when you stop you have aged only a few hours but the universe has aged years. Moving clocks are slower.

So no, you can never catch up to your headlights.

Einstein's relativistic Theory is just another Way to say - Let me take that money!

You will never catch up because light travels at a constant speed regardless of the speed of the platform it is on, so unless you EXCEED the speed of light, once you turn on the headlights, you'll never catch up.

Bob Stern

No way.

Consider a simlpe example , you are a cow boy riding on hourse with machine gun in your hand ,taking the same scenario that speed of hourse is half the speed of bullets ,then you start firing and seed up the hourse to the speed of bullets,will you able to catch the bullets? A big noooo.

Its the theory of relativity.... :)

Monu Purohit

No. The speed of light from headlight would be relative to it. It would always be ahead.

An example is that when you travel by aircraft, you are still able to walk inside even though the craft may be cruising at 1000 km/h.

One may argue that in case of aircraft, we are talking about walking 'within' whereas, the light would be 'outside' the car. This has to be understood that the 'inside' or 'outside' does not matter because we need a floor to walk, whereas light does not require any medium to 'walk'. Thus the cases are comparable.

Another interesting variation would be for the tail-light of the car. Would it be visible to anyone standing by the side? Remember, the net velocity of light from tail-light would be zero.

Try this. Same scenario, but this time the question is when the vehicle is at .5 speed of light, how fast is the light from the headlights moving forward?

1) Light speed.

2) 1.5 Light speed.

#1

186,000 per sec

I'm sorry. Poor wording on my part.

How fast is the light from the light moving relative to the ground?

The Floor of Light is the elctromagnetic filed of radiation

The question is conceptual in which attaining light velocity is just assumed to make it a valid statement under today's prevailing laws of physics. The main object of the question is second part asking simply first 'c1' could catchup second 'c2' having a time interval which is not defined in question (but could be assumed any between the turning on of the headlights 'c1' and movement of the imaginary vehicle 'c2' say tn seconds). This tn second interval cannot be crossed unless or until the will of Al Mighty God who created the universe and hence the laws of physics. Therefore the answer is no. But if we take the first part of the question as a reality that is the vehicle really approaches the velocity of light then its mass will approach to infinity and will become a black hole and then it might suck the emitted light from the headlights provided the distance between both is not reached such value to nullify the gravitational pull of our so called black hole.

Comments are welcome at <lakaka21@hotmail.com>

If the car really accelerates to the speed of Light than there is no Timedifference betweeen sending and catching the light - This black hole would be a light"beam" with a wavelength of zero in an infinite time - so the speed of light should be zero!

Shall I reply to this jokingly or seriously?

lakaka21

all i understand

today's physical law's seems to me sometimes just like the penny-shoes of my girl friend

Even then you are abiding by those laws knowingly or unknowingly. If you have some better idea then share with us instead of cursing existing laws.

lakaka21

there's not a reall difference (maybe an small numeric one) between the relativity and the doppler -so why should i change my mind.

oh, the penny shoes - most time they are unused - and if they really used they are unusably.

I dont know doppler effect but I know cobbler effect. In cobbler effect all universe seems like a boot shifting from heal to toe under enormous force of foot nebula.

Aah Alas!! Another nutty professor. If you did as much research in theoretical physics as you have done in your girl friend's shoes. world would not be the same,

Hopeless case lakaka21

Thast's right - but the cobbler effect is bond to the dopler effect by the bobbler effect - this seems a bit like crazy but is more than a bit.

Now if you will include the appler effect (think Newton), then you would have covered the ABCD's of phyziks!

(BTW, notice today's date... )

Yes - that's 100% right - and that's the deppler effect, isn't?

And how does that relate to the zepola effects?

What are you talking about? They haven't used zepola since the Hindenburg blew up in New Jersey. Besides, they can't even get to Mach 0.1. I don't think they even had headlights.

Fried zepolas, from the feast of San Genaro. The effect is overeating. You must be confused with one of the Marx brothers.

Karl was just a confused German. Not like those other wackos that used hydrogen to fill a balloon.

How should they see in the dark - without headlights?

No

You would never catch up with the light, whatever speed u travel! May be even twice the speed of light!

Because the head lights, which are the source of generation light, also will be moving with that speed. Hence speed of light thrown out by head lights = speed of the light + speed of the vehicle.

Quite right but with few exceptions :

1) Once the light emitted from headlights of vehicle will be on its own like a bullet shot by a gun.

2) Nothing could be added in the velocity of light which is a universal constant. Until so far no phenomenon is known having more speed than light.

3) In vacuum speed of light is constant irrespective of frame of references.

lakaka21

When I increase my speed to the speed of light I will have infinite mass and become a black hole. Light from my headlamps will be unable to escape the event horizon. Light that has already escaped will continue for ever.

You cannot catch up to your beam of light from the headlights because according to the proven theory of relativity the speed of the light from your headlights is relative to your motion. Light still proceeds at 186,000 miles/second from your observation point.

yes, ofcourse. As you travel at the speed of light and emit light at that same speed.

No, if you accelarated to the speed of light then you would be traveling at the same speed but your lights would still be in front of you. You would have to accelerate beyond the speed of light to catch up to them.

No, because if you are travelling @ 1/2 the speed of light when you turn on your lights and then accelerate to the speed of light the initial beam will be well ahead.

WOW! Not only do we have multiple personalties, but they can not agree with them selves.

Posts 156,162,166,167,168 169,170.

The car is traveling in a Newtonian frame of reference traveling at the speed of light if the light is shinning in a vacuum the car will not catch up to the light because it is traveling at twice the speed of light. If the light is not in a vacuum the car, traveling at the speed of light, will eventually catch up to it because it is slightly slower than the speed of light.

Since we are ignoring relativity by going the speed of light, the light emitted by the headlights would still be moving from the vehicle at the speed of light in relation to the velocity of the vehicle. To a stationary observer the headlights would be visible at the furthest end of the blue light spectrum. To the driver, the headlights would be illuminating the road ahead.

The fuel economy of the vehicle would be fairly low, all mass in the known universe would be required to be converted into energy and consumed by the vehicle to get it to C2.

Cheers,

Bloefeld

You, Your Car, and Your lights are traveling around the sun, you slam your car into reverse and travel at half the speed of light, where you at some point pass your headlights going the other direction.

Steven Wright the comedian posed this question several years ago in his stand up act.

Well first you are traveling at half the speed when you switch on your lights so the light beam is faster than you. Then you start increasing your speed and at this time the light is still faster and leaving you behind assuming its powerful enough to last for a long time. When you finally reach the speed of light. effectively the light beam will no longer be increasing its distance from you but will be at a constant distant safely ahead of you always, so NO you will technically not be able to catch up to the light from your headlamps. U have to exceed the speed of light to catch up to it.

I think there still remains a problem about the interpretation of the problem. If you think of it literally, then the problem description seems wanting to be blamed, for instance due to the impossibility of reaching the speed of light (except for things with null mass at rest, like photons). Moreover, you could say a million things about why a car cannot reach that speed (I'm sure mine just couldn't). Please, forget them all if you can tell apart what is substantial in this problem and what's not. "Car" is obviously non-substantial. It's a dubbing for something that moves. "Headlights beams" stands for a beam of light departing from it.

If you reach this level of abstraction, then you can think about the underlying problem. If not, all this is mere trivia and speculation about angels and parallel universes. Then, let's reword the problem: From something moving at half the speed of light, a beam moving at SOME speed emerges. What happens if the first object accelerates to the speed of light?

Note that the problem doesn't state anything about how fast are those beams moving. It simply implies that they are light. Nor is anything said about the meaning of "speed of light": This may mean the speed of light in the vacuum (c) or anything else (I mean the speed of light in a given, unknown medium).

We can assume that the final speed of the "car" equals the speed of the wave front of the "beams". In this case, as many posters already correctly showed, the "car" will never reach the wave front. This wouldn't happen from a classical point of view, or from a relativistic one.

But that assumption is not mandatory. If the final speed of the "car" exceeds the speed of the "beams", the "car" will surely catch up. Bash123 was very close to this possibility (but the car speed should exceed the beam speed instead of reaching it). In this case, the result would be analog to a sonic boom.

Nothing in the problem as it is stated implies that the light emerging from the "headlights" is moving at the speed c. But, if you can't still believe this, Nature has news for you. Simply replace "car" by "a neutron". When a neutron ("car") travels across a dense medium and decelerate, it loses energy in the form of photons, which travel not at c, but at the speed of light in that medium. Were the medium water, that speed would be about 3/4c. If the neutron is moving faster than that, a "boom" cone will build up. This is known as the Cerenkov Effect, and accounts for the light blue glowing observable in the reservoirs of "nucular" (According to Bush, Palin, et. al.) reactors, that media have us got used to relate with "something nuclear happening".

My car moves in the same medium as the light beam - so the car speed couldn't exceed the light speed.

Of course you will catch your lights, once you attain the speed of light, your headlights can no longer be ahead of you, but don't stand in front of the vehicle coming at you to verify this!