First | Prev || Next | Last
¿Question #539?
EndersGame: What would happen if a car travelling at the speed of light turned on its headlights?

0Shea0: Sentient cars!!!!! Wow the future will be so great!
MartinWin: Nothing with a mass > 0 can travel at the speed of light, so let's say that the car (or let's make it a spaceship to be more realistic) travels very fast, like 0.99c. As an observer from earth you can see that the light has a velocity of c. As the driver you will also see the light as this speed. This is no contradiction because time goes differently for these two persons (the faster you are the slower time runs). So when the observer sees that the light passed 300000km in one second, the driver sees that the light only passed a fraction of 300000km but also in only a fraction of one second.
Kosmoko: I suppose something funny, which would cause a physicist to fill a blackboard with strange formulas.
rogerwilco86:
Woelf: It would explode.
Narl: He still could not see in the dark, only in his rear view.
Game Guardian: The car and light would combine together to form a Power Rangers Megazord.
Chatbus: Nothing.
vandemonium: It would turn into a rhubarb pie.
Der Ubermolch: The electrons in teh wire system are already going at the speed of light. So they would stay where they are in the circuit. No lights go on. I think.
hob69: Nice.
jouslare: T-e-s-s-e-r-a-c-t!!!!
MikeMKH: From the drivers point of view nothing.
Boot2daHead: Nothing. The electrical wiring in the car can't work under those conditions.
Kodeir: Implodes
aleo09: i don't know
darcyj2: You'd see the lights at the same moment the car hit you.
bill_andel: "It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine."
matthan: It might blow up.
elirlandes: It would get busted for speeding.
DHEK: The headlights wouldn't help in lighting the area in front of the car.
eddyspaghetti: The universe would cease to exist.
mats-k: Boring answer: Accelerating to the speed of light would take infinite energy if the car had any rest mass and Einstein was right. The light would travel with the speed of light as measured by any observer. Speeds that large don't add "normally".
mike86: it would be able to see where its been!
Brentoon: Ahh, that age old question.
sdonohue: To the guy in the car they'd be fine. To those outside, they would not be visible until the car struck them.
bigbadsteve: sparks would fly
mpw182: Sid Miers Pirates boardgame would publish
PsyJam: This question is riddled with problems.. didn't some scientist state that as things approach the speed of light that their density increases? Or soemthing? Basically, who cares, because no car with headlights will be travelling at the speed of light any time soon.
suncrush: From the frame of reference of the car, the beams would proceed away at the speed of light.
daveroswell: ask mythbusters...
Maeglor: Everybody knows no car can go at speed of light, and speedy gonzalez have no headlights.
MaksimSmelchak: The guy turning them on would think they're broken because he's a doofus.
vampywife: hmm, i don't know...let's do an experiment!!
John3: it would cause some kind of cooky accident blocking other light traffic
Hoju: 299792.458 km/s to zero realllly quick. Have your seatbelt on!
mlanza: Ask Steven Wright.
Nekura: They would light up.
WatchmanX2000: The driver would die of asphyxiation in space.
Kubilai: The battery would be emptied.
Helenoftroy: nothing
Chris Page: The light from the headlights would be traveling at the speed of light relative to the car, and relative to the observer watching the car go by at light speed. Yes, special relativity is wacky, but that's what you get when you no longer assume that time is invariant in all frames of reference.
patrick95350: The car would have infinite mass, requiring an infinite amount of fuel to burn, causing massive pollution and global warming. That's what happened to Venus. Damn street racers.
dictator555: Wouldn't the light simply move at the same speed as the car until the car changed speed?
brainrob: The driver would go blind
cerulean: "You canna change th' laws o' physics!"
BakeliteTM: Ostrich peanut force
Ozvortex: Oooooooohhh...my brain just exploded!
Odat: A hole would be torn in the space-time continuum (a "Fry Hole", if you will), and then we'd be stuck playing D&D with Gary Gygax for all eternity. I get to be the thief!
squonk: If you don't know, then I don't want to work for you.
Yollege: Everything would cease to exist.
javelin98: It'd crash into the beams, of course! And besides, what kind of gas mileage would that thing be getting?
Evilnames: The universe would end
cloudstalkerian: Hey i even watched a video about this in university physics class on relativity and other such fine phsyical events. By the time you where already approaching the speed of light, any normal light you could have seen would have already turned into very deadly cosmic rays far more powerful than any form of radition man produces which would kill near instantly. So you could never turn on your headlights since you'd be dead already! :-) cheery thought eh?
lrdmaul: they would break
CharlieWonka: it would go dark
yoacusna: Nothing visible. Bit of a meaningless question really.
The Unbeliever: 42
kimapesan: The light would flow backward into the car, blinding the idiot driver who already is a blinkin' idiot for trying to drive at the speed of light.
deadkenny: The car can't travel at the speed of light
skrutsch: The car would explode.
Defdamesdompi: no one would care
scriptorum: You would die.
Gargoyle: It would crash into it's own headlights, creating a subspace anomaly for Star Trek -people to wonder about... and shoot tachyons at it.
ThatFalafelGirl: is it driving in the daytime?
Lord_Prussian: Wow, that's deep.
chad56s: Nothing
melissa: Nothing
puffinge: can a car do that?
King_Custard: It would implode
AWildEep: Speed is relative.
xlorp: Or fired a laser beam?
Tim Synge: Er, do cars turn on their own headlights?
2amp: i think they'd still work. same reason we can talk in a plane movie above mach...
solove: Travelling at the speed of light in the dark? Don't be silly.
batman: Cosmic Doughnut.
isolated: It would die.
BaSL: this is interesting
fellonmyhead: The driver would be able to see in the dark.
Oborro: I would assume there would be an immense flash of light directly in front of where the car stopped
AlorielLelyn: By Einstein's theory of relativity, the car would explode prior to reaching c.
Mishenka: Um... stuff?
tragicpoet: A gang car would drive them off the road and kill them
gnomehome: "A brief history of time"CD-rom has a nice film about this.
buergerberatung: i always thought at lightspeed exists no matter anymore. so, who would turn it on and with what ?
fsumarc: they would burn up with the rest of the car.
viogression: Light speed is constant, therefore light will always travel at c regardless of how fast the emitting source is.
CDRodeffer: It still wouldn't be able to see where it was going.
Blackwind: nothing
GuyHill: Its headlights turn on
Karlsen: Physics would implode
Mordachai: Dunno, I never can seem to reach those speeds before getting pulled over by the cops.
TiNYTimIDFluffYBunnY: Is my wife driving?......eject!
lexen: aaaaaahhhhh I'm blind!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
klarkinhistrep: You'd never hear the click
StormKnight: Owww...head spinning now
Bluenose: It would surely crash
djflippy: It would reduce the chance of an accident
onky: I'd smack the driver for his stupidity:)
chaddyboy_2000: I hope the correct answer is "it explodes".
geberus: my head hurts
BobDodgerBlue: Impossible
Ludocrazy: They would go on
louiseh: The light from the headlights would be travelling at the speed of light with respect to the car.
mnvalente: frogs would rain
Shakar: The headlights would have no effect. Btw how I'm supposed to that?
snoozefest: impossible
Pseudo Nymh: Careful with that one, it's an antique.
seanp: To passengers in the car, everything would appear normal.
TD2008YDS: hmm...good question
djlg: It would cease to exist, but then it already has if its travelling at c.
queequeg: Banana whoa fandang
jttm: Nothing can travel as fast as the speed of light.
hooded_paladin: They would burn out.
Chris Tettamanti: wouldn't work
fizzix: Even though it is impossible, the headlights still work. Light always travels at the speed of light.
LudesFactor: got airbags? really really good airbags.
MisterCranky: Robert Rossney's answer to this one really cracked me up, so I'm going to pass.
CortexBomb: Nothing unless you slowed down enough to let the light get out in front of you
ValJor: You can't travel *at* the speed of light. You can go slower than light or faster than light but you can't exactly match the speed of light
skelebone: Your head asplode.
janiera: It wouldn't see anything
kunnagh: Daft question, since anything with any mass can't travel at the speed of light. Slightly below, the light from the headlights would still move away from the car, just apparently very slowly...
Flyspeck23: The universe would end.
UhhhClem: The driver would get a whopping ticket.
Chris__M: It would probably get pulled over for speeding.
mrbeankc: It would be very messy
WasQ: It's better, it can see far
Krishna: It would be able to see the deer travelling at the speed of light in front of it!
dakarp: Trick question--the speed of light is unattainable. But if it were travelling near that speed, the light would still move away from the car at the speed of light.