Question Speed of light

[iluvspace]

If you’re in a spaceship traveling at the speed of light and you turn on the headlights, what happens?

 

[stanwaterman]

If you’re in a spaceship traveling at the speed of light and you turn on the headlights, what happens?

You can't travel at the speed of light and spaceships don't have headlights! However, hypothetically, if you were travelling just under light speed and you had headlights then they would look normal to you, illuminating things in their beam but to someone way away in front your headlights would be reduced in wavelength so would appear as uv or Xrays, not as light.

 

[Catastrophe]

Google "Einstein travelling on light wave" for the rest of this.

Einstein's thought experiment of riding a light wave was a key part of his development of special relativity:

• The experiment
  When Einstein was 16, he imagined himself riding a light wave and observing another light wave moving parallel to him.

Cat