WILL MY HEAD LIGHTS WORK IF?

[POWWAG]

Theoretically, if you were driving faster than the speed of light and pulled your head light switch, would your lights work? Would the light just stay trapped in the head light? Or would it project at the speed of light relative to the head light?

Ponder this; sometime in the 1970’s, really drunk, in the back of a pick up doing about 70-80 mph, we were throwing rocks at mail boxes, and the rocks were accelerating faster than the truck was traveling. But if you just let the rock go it would hit the mailbox at the same velocity as the truck was traveling.

We only got two mail boxes that night and someone adjusted my karma years later by shredding my mail box with a half stick of dynamite.

Thanks in advance for all your help on this.

Don

[steven]

Ahhh, physics. Theoretically, yes I do believe that the light would still be traveling out in front of you. The only thing is, your mass would be so incredibly large, infinite actually. There is no energy source great enough to propel you that fast. Also, you would virtually have no length also. Hence where Einstien's E=mc squared comes from. Where E equals the energy, M = mass, and C = the speed of light, approx. 3.0 x 10 to the eighth. But Im sure youre aware that this is not possible anyway, thats why you started the post with "theoretically"

If the light were to supposedly stay trapped in the lens, then the same would be true that if you were traveling eighty miles an hour in your truck, and threw an eighty mile an hour fastpitch out in front of the truck, the ball would never leave your hand. Which we know is not true from your experience.

Physics is fun. I hope that helps. Dont go smashing mailboxes!!!

[Russ]

Here's a good idea. While driving at the speed of light, speed up a little so you can actually go backwards in time. Go all the way back to 71 and pick me up a new Adventurer while you're there.

[POWWAG]

That would be cool! I'd have to go back to 67 and see Old Red when it was new, before all of the previous owners neglect.

Spock theorizes that you have to sling shot around the sun to get enough velocity to go back in time. I suppose a 440 Power Wagon could do that right here on the planet.

I’ll take a Big Horn though to haul all of the NOS parts back we can’t find now. FredM will go with, he likes crazy road trips.

Don

[soopernaut]

How would you control it? Would the lights even stand up to that kind of pressure or would they just collapse? How would you be able to move to turn the lights on? I think this poses more questions than answers. I'll ponder the original question some more under hypothetical situations

If there is a fly in your truck on the back window and you are traveling at 80 mph and it flys to the front window how come it isn't crushed? Essentially it would be traveling its speed plus the speed of the vehicle.

[steven]

Oh, and by the way, it is believed that you cannot travel back in time, only forward. Since time slows when you travel near the speed of light, you will age faster than those who are not traveling. Therefore, you could age in one day on earth while whoever is traveling near the speed of light could have aged a week, even years, depending upon velocity. Sorry to burst your bubbles.

Steve

[POWWAG]

OK, so if time is going by at a slower rate for everyone not traveling at/or faster than the speed of light then would replacing your head lights with strobe lights make them appear to be going back in time? Since strobes make things appear to slow down that seems to be a logical conclusion.

Speaking of bubbles! How does Hydrogen Peroxide work? What makes the little bubbles when you put it on a boo-boo? I think it’s the single cell bacteria exploding, But that’s just a guess. Sorry about getting off-topic with this.

Don

[soopernaut]

Okay I solved it.

First of all, the 2 situations are different. If you throw a baseball 80 mph while on a truck that is moving 80 mph, you are actually throwing it 160 mph relative to earth. You are only throwing it 80 mph relative to the truck.
If you throw an object on earth it doesn't travel backwards even though the earth is moving at a high rate of speed. The speed is relative to earth.

Here is where it gets interesting. The speed of light is constant. The speed of light in outer space is the same as it is on earth. All light travels at the same speed(or does it?). Through different mediums, light will travel at different speeds.

No light could be projected foward while traveling at a speed faster than light itself. In theory the light should appear behind you at a later time. However, since the source was gone before light even had a chance to form it probably wouldn't appear. Your truck probably wouldn't appear either since what you see is a refraction of light anyway.

There is a way light could be projected in front of you if you were traveling faster than light itself. If you turned the light on at a lower speed and built up speed. The distance the light would travel would have to be greater than the distance you traveled in x amount of time. You would eventually catch up to the light and pass it but it would eventually disapate into heat.

I hope this helps.

[steven]

Okay I solved it.

First of all, the 2 situations are different. If you throw a baseball 80 mph while on a truck that is moving 80 mph, you are actually throwing it 160 mph relative to earth. You are only throwing it 80 mph relative to the truck.
If you throw an object on earth it doesn't travel backwards even though the earth is moving at a high rate of speed. The speed is relative to earth.

Right.

Here is where it gets interesting. The speed of light is constant. The speed of light in outer space is the same as it is on earth. All light travels at the same speed.

Right.

Your truck probably wouldn't appear either since what you see is a refraction of light anyway.

Sort of. The truck wouldnt appear because length decreases as speeed increases. You would have no length once you go faster than light. Also, mass would be infinite like I said before, so you would essentially be driving a black hole. If you could.

You would eventually catch up to the light and pass it but it would eventually disapate into heat.

Light is made of photons, which go on forever. They dont go out, they just keep going, to the edges of the universe.

Good info sooper

[soopernaut]

You would eventually catch up to the light and pass it but it would eventually dissipate into heat.

Light is made of photons, which go on forever. They dont go out, they just keep going, to the edges of the universe.

Light is also made of electromagnetic waves. I am assuming that the reason the light doesn't remain visible for ever is due to the waves increasing in length over time. If this is true, then after the waves no longer are in the visible spectrum they would become infrared waves. Infrared waves cannot be seen but they can be felt as heat. Therefore, one could argue that light dissipates into heat.

Who would think we would be discussing quantum physics?

[OregonDodgeboy]

Who would think we would be discussing quantum physics?

Quantum physics? Wasn't that a tv showe with that guy from Star Treck Entersprize? I seemed to recall he liked wearin dresses in dat show.

I never knewe too much bout that kinda stuff. I feel good when I can count moore than ten pallets in my truck without takin off my shoes!

Ok guys, how about this questions fer ya:

On earth, a really fat guy will eventually quit jiggling if he stands still long enough, I assume because of gravity. In space, where there is no gravity, would the same guy ever be able to stop jiggling? And could that propell him? And if so, could he then become a perpetual motion machine?



(Oh I couldn't resist,.... but I probably should have. See what happens wehn I run out of my meds?! )

[PwrWgnWalt]

Enjoyed the dissertations on physics! However, when posing the question of acceleration and whether the headlights would stand up to the pressure... we must assume that any attempt at slingshotting a 440 PowerWagon around the sun to gain terminal velocity would be done in the vacuum of space . Thus, a few obstacles to overcome.

Why must this be done in the vacuum of space?

1. The resitance of earth's atmosphere would heat and then melt the body of even the stoutest PW (ever seen the titanium body plates of an SR71 Blackbird expand at speed and then contract after cooling? - or the black hi-temp paint burn off?) Space would have no such atmopsheric-drag-induced heat (but the little space nuggets might necessitate a new windshield!).

2. To turn on one's headlights in the infinite realm of space would allow one to see the "light speed" of the light emitted from the lamp, relative to whatever the "warp" speed of the PW is. So, yes, the light would emit - and in space, the headlamps would not melt from friction!

Obstacles
1. Power to accelerate to light speed: the 440 is a definite "must have". We would need to launch from the Space Station or be lifted into outer-earth orbit by a launch vehicle. A self-contained, oxygen (hydrogen?!) producing system would be needed, as well as a long-term, high-output energy source (beans, anyone?)

2. Steering: another definite must-have is a freshly rebuilt steering box. Can't be wobbling at light speed! Oh, and speed-rated tires!

3. As far as being able to visualize the warp-speed Dodge, it would only appear as a bright flash to a passer-by... like a picture flash bulb.

4. Brakes will need to be top-notch; and we'll need a l-o-n-g runway!!

In short, it is "possible" that it could be done... but is highly improbable due to cost and the fact that . . .

no one is going to part with their Power Wagon!

PwrWgnWalt

[dodgegrrrrrrl]

If you're travelling faster than light, could the cops still catch you on photo radar? How about infrared?

If you honked as somebody pulled out in front of you, they wouldn't hear you until after you'd driven clear through them and were about 186,000 miles down the road.

You'd have to stop and change you oil 372 times a second, and your plugs about 110 times a second or you'd void your warranty.

You wouldn't want to roll your windows down as it would probably be a little noisy.

IF your headlights burned out, would you know it unless you stopped to check?

Your brakes would probably wear out several times before you could bring your speed down.

your headlights would appear to be above untraviolet or up into x-ray or gamma because of the increased speed of the photons and although you couldn't see things, you could see THROUGH things.

Your disappearing red tailights, because of the speed at which they were retreating, would be invisible to the eye but could probably be picked up by submarines at sea as ELF transmissions or perhaps up into marine radio. Because of this, the punk in the slammed honda sitting on your @#% wouldn't be able to see your brakelights and would rear end you as you tried to come down from light speed. Rear-ending a big Dodge with a honda while doing light speed+ would probably total your car. Too bad!

Your music coming out of the radio would catch up with you when you got home.

The loose wood bits and beer cans riding in your bed would get sucked into the slipstream and imediately be vaporized in a brilliant flash by the air friction.

[duracell]

i've got a problem with what dodgegrrrrrl wrote about. now why do you think a honda could go the speed of light huh . you keep writing like that and i'm gona tell

[steven]

You wouldn't want to roll your windows down as it would probably be a little noisy.

No sound in space, no medium for it to travel

[dodgegrrrrrrl]

The honda was drafting. One thing these trucks DO do with their wonderful aerodynamics is suck a big air bubble along behind them

[soopernaut]

You'd have to stop and change you oil 372 times a second, and your plugs about 110 times a second or you'd void your warranty.

Maybe it wasn't specified, but I thought we were talking about a sweptline here. You must have one of those 400,000 mile/40 year warranties.

[Hemikuda71]

Well, the warranty would go out in about 3 seconds.

[Roger]

So if you threw the baseball 80 mph out of the back of the truck it would just drop straight to the ground like dropping your keys?

[Sandstone]

would that 440 have an np420 tranny or 727? i would think the granny would come in handy to get things rolling. there is the problem of gas stations tho!