Quote:
Originally Posted by PCH
Agreed, - surely the light emitted from the headlight in Q1 wouldn't even move ahead of the headlight at all, as it is travelling at the speed of light already. Unless of course it's "speed of light + speed of light" if the velocities are added.
And the bullet being fired from the rear ship, - well if the velocities aren't added then it would disappear off backwards at a hell of a rate instantly and would therefore go straight thru the back of the gun and the person firing it as well. If the velocities are added, then what would happen when the bullet looses it's own velocity? Would it just 'stop' relatively speaking? Meaning in fact that it is now moving along at the speed of light since it doesn't have any 'extra' velocity left from being fired?
Just my 2c as a totally unscientific person  |
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick Petrie
My thoughts or two bobs worth.
To any observer travelling at any speed, the speed of light would have to be absolute and relative to the observer.( I don't know of anyone who has seen anything travelling faster than the speed of light!)
If two spaceships could travel at the speed of light(improbable) in one direction they would therefore be able to see each other with light travelling between them at the same speed of light relative to each other. I think then in this case that ship A would see the beam of light from ship B at the speed of light between them.(Question 1 & 2)
Theoretically Question 3 would have to assume that the bullet (mass) can travel faster than the speed of light. If it could then the bullet would hit
ship A at 4500ft/sec.
Personally I don't think any matter can travel faster than the speed of light.
If that were the case then we are in deep s--t from any object in space on a collision course with Earth travelling faster than the speed of light. We definitely wouldn't have time to kiss our backsides goodbye.  |
Neither scenario would occur. Apart from the infinite relativistic mass, ships A and B would be dimensionless in the direction of motion let alone have a 500m gap between them.
Length contraction might be a difficult concept to grasp but there is a practical application in the construction of particle accelerators. For particles with small half lives accelerated at 0.99c, the distance between the particle beam source and the target is calculated taking into account the relativistic effects.
Regards
Steven